Opinions on Life Coaching

I noticed a number of schools offering online programs (Masters and Grad Certificates) in Life Coaching. Some examples are Grand Canyon, Regents, American Military University.

It is a largely unregulated field (ie you don't technically need any training or degree). As long as you don't claim to diagnose, treat, or cure anything you will likely fly below the radar. Some coaches and organizations try to parallel counseling specialities such as Relationship Coaches, Geriatric Coaches, and so on. I see Leadership and Management Coaches in a different category as that seems a reasonable field for Coaches.

I love the Progressive Insurance commercials with the "Life Coach" (who seems like a therapist).

Wondering what your general impressions are of Life Coaches, the field itself, and the attempt to introduce accredited graduate level education.

 

Is attempting to regulate this regulatory overkill vs consumer protection?

 

In my healthcare economics class, I learned that the free market hinges on the assumption that consumers have enough information to make decisions in their best interests. When it comes to healthcare, they often don't have enough information. Health is more complex than deciding which can of beans taste best.

It would have to be determined whether there is a problem to begin with. How many people are seeking out life coaching for serious mental health issues? Then, there could be a religious challenge. If the government allows unlicensed clergy to counsel people, then why not life coaches? Life coaches could just throw "spiritual" in their messaging, join a shell religious organization, and seek religious exemption.

 

And they certainly do. I have seen people basically get ordained by some new ageish or loose entity for cover for their life coaching or hypnosis practice.

Clergy generally have very long graduate programs (90 credit hours in their faith) and I have no problem with them doing pastoral counseling. The problem comes in when they try and deal with mental health issues without working in tandem with a licensed therapist. This (clergy and life coaches working alone) can range from ineffective to downright dangerous (eg anorexia).

 

I have even more heartburn with entities like the National Christian Counselors Association (NCCA) which advertises they can hook you up with a school that can help you get your BA, Masters or PhD. First, they mean unaccredited schools and I am not aware of any non substandard "schools" associated with them.

Then the credentials they offer such as Licensed Pastoral Counselor (LPC) and Licensed Clinical Pastoral Counselor (LCPC) are surely able to mislead consumers because Licenses are issued by governmental entities and the postnominals resemble state credentialed counselors.

These people then set up their practice with sketchy degrees and misleading credentials. And it is run by "Christians" and practiced by practitioners in denial about what they have with Jesus misused as the mascot. Turned loose on the public.

Steve Levicoff called this a notorious credential mill.

 

Various religions and denominations differ in their standards. Anyone without a degree can find a denomination or independent church that will ordain them. I don't have a problem with it as long as unlicensed individuals avoid treating mental health disorders.

 

This can be a bit of a grey area, and I'm surprised that it's not been scrutinized by regulators or therapy credentialing bodies. Perhaps it has, and I just haven't seen it. You mentioned career coaches, and I think they are completely fine, as are similar business coaches. The ones that make me wonder if they're crossing the line are the ADD, ADHD, "neurodiverse," and "neuro spicy" life coaches. They seem to be specifically targeting an audience that has potential mental health issues. Part of this is scammers, always. TikTok seems full of them. There are certainly also people trying to do the right thing without realizing they are going into a licensed scope of practice. I think this may also be an indicator of a market demand for more therapy/counselor professionals. Maybe it's also an indicator that the licensed route is too high of a barrier for many.

 

ICF has a category for ADHD/ADD coaching, so it's being sanctioned by their biggest private regulatory organization.

While not necessarily involving mental health disorders, I'm kind of on the fence with relationship coaching. There are a lot of relationship coaches out there saying crazy stuff, and they're dealing with families and couples with serious issues.

 

I have to think the big winners if life coaches are licensed will be thesaurus websites, followed by life mentors, wellness guides, self-improvement trainers…

 

Jodi Hildebrandt was a relationship coach--she's in prison now. She pled guilty to child abuse, etc. against Ruby Franke's and her husband Kevin's youngest children ("8 Passengers" YouTube fame).

The Frankes had sought counseling from Hildebrandt, who advised Kevin to leave the family, and Ruby to move herself and the children into Hildebrandt's home. Ruby and Jodi became "business partners." They were both arrested and the children rescued when one of the kids fled Jodi's home, begging one of her neighbors to help him.

A long story; you can read about some of it here:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/23/us/ruby-franke-child-abuse-police-video/index.html


My point is that counseling/coaching related to mental health issues, broadly defined, needs to fall under licensing requirements to make sure the practitioner has some ethics, education and experience with mental health issues. And so public has some protection against crazy, manipulative, and abusive therapists, even if it is only after the fact. (How to protect children from crazy, manipulative, and abusive parents is another issue.)

 

@Suss

Strange case. This article says Life Coaching regulations are under consideration.

"Mark Steinagel, director of the Utah Division of Professional Licensing under the Department of Commerce, said life coaching is currently unregulated in the state.

“We receive complaints throughout the year on life coaching that kind of goes too far into the mental health therapy world,” he said."

https://ksltv.com/624946/life-coaching-regulations-under-consideration-following-hildebrandt-case/

 

It would be helpful to hear from someone who is an ICF-certified coach, preferably one with a more advanced certification (like the PCC).

I'm guessing you won't.

 

I know someone who was really big into Young Living and then joined Oola. For those not familiar, Oola is basically a Life Coaching MLM.

 

That does NOT sound like a fortuitous combo.

 

Someone once observed that in life coaching and hypnosis there is a tendency to cannibalize their own. They discover the money is in marketing themselves (and their products) as experts to other life coaches and hypnosis practitioners to help them build their practice, bring in clientele, and get to the next level.

You wonder how much experience some of them have before they decided they were super experts who could help you. They prey on struggling people who thought the certification or course they took was the path to a new career in riches.

Of course, for some life coaches that positivity, marketing, confidence, and hype is part of their schtick. I have what you need to make your life wonderful, get your relationship on track, make you a super star.

 

Iyanla Vanzant has an accredited degree in law, but her degree in spiritual psychology is from an unaccredited, New Age university. She had a pretty popular television show called Fix My Life. Now that the show is over, she's become a manosphere grifter giving women relationship advice that got Iyanla, herself, in three bad marriages. One of them involved physical abuse. Because she isn't licensed, she can't be held accountable.

Kevin Samuels was a certified image coach who convinced single mothers that they shouldn't automatically believe their child when they make an outcry of sexual abuse. He also told them that the accused step dad shouldn't be immediately removed from the home. He was never held accountable because he wasn't licensed.

In comparison, a licensed psychiatrist was holding therapy sessions with strangers on his live shows without establishing a patient relationship. People threatened to make complaints to the medical board. I'm not sure if anyone followed through with a formal complaint, but at least there's an entity with actual power that can hold him accountable.

The people who should weigh in on this are current and former licensed mental professionals with advanced degrees in their fields. I would like to hear from psychologists, social workers, marriage and family therapists, clinical mental health counselors, psychiatric nurse practitioners, addictions counselors, and psychiatrists.

 

@sanantone

You are making a case for regulation with some of the examples you have mentioned. Pretty bad and unfortunate that people have been misled by these gurus.

Colorado tried a form of regulation where they required people practicing various types of therapeutic and non-regulated stuff to be registered with the state as an unlicensed therapist. There were no educational or training requirements but what it did require was that you have certain disclosures to clients about yourself, about their rights, and how to file a complaint. I believe I read that most of the complaints the behavioral board dealt with were about the unlicensed therapists as you might expect.

That law was sunseted and unpopular with licensed therapists who were not only concerned about competition but the appearance of government acceptance and approval of these untrained and uneducated people practicing all sorts of woo.

 

Marriage and family therapy is already a regulated field. ADHD is a clinical diagnosis. I think it's fair to ask whether coaches should be in those two areas at all. While I only mentioned two cases involving coaches with millions of fans, there are many more that I have observed. Relationship coaching is a hot field right now, but it's being mixed with extremist ideologies, pseudoscience, and money scams. I haven't heard of too many people going to ADHD coaches, so that might not be a problem that needs to be addressed.

 

ADHD coaches / therapy is on the rise.
CBT has been shown to be effective https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1087054716664413