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this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2026
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This lawsuit was brought by a licensed psychotherapist who also happens to be a Christian. There are already restrictions on who can practice psychotherapy. These aren’t some unlicensed people. These are the people you are talking about, with a graduate school education and a licensing process and everything.
Probably someone with a masters in social work. Counselor.
I'll look into this more.
PhDs are a bit harder to get compared to masters or PsyD. PsyDs are easier as it's pay-to-get type of degree whereas a PhD is more competitive and requires research experience and a dissertation. So you have to be a research scientist to get a PhD. Not true for PsyD. Some of those people barely understand how to understand research papers or stats. They don't get training in methods or statistics so they don't know how to understand research. Nor understand human biased and why we must use scientific method because we can't trust our own opinion.
There are Christian colleges and universities but they often do not have accredited psychology degrees. They have to have their curriculum be at certain standards set by the american psychology association (apa) to qualify.
However. You can still get a counseling license even if the university you attended is not apa accredited.
Counseling licenses are given by the state.
I think this should not be allowed. But it is.
Yeah there are way too many unqualified mental health practitioners out there.
There is research on outcomes of patients based on the education type and level of therapist.
Those with masters have poorest outcomes and psyD follow. Both of these often do not use "evidence based therapies" but make up their own approaches based on their own beliefs.
As you can imagine that's not great.
Since PhD psychologist are trained scientist, it's probably not surprising they rely more on evidence based approaches.
I don’t think making people get PhDs in order to be a therapist is a solution here.
I’m a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and a therapist. I already had to go through 2 years of grad school plus a little over 3,000 hours of supervised work before receiving my license (I also did an additional 2-year post-grad program in marriage and family therapy).
Acting like that doesn’t make me qualified to provide therapy is frankly bullshit and elitist.
LCSWs are the largest group providing behavioral health services in the Unted States, at 60% (Page 7 - https://socialwork.utexas.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/TX-SW-Workforce-Report24.pdf). Suggesting that every single therapist should be a PhD would result in a very swift and decisive mental health crisis in the country because not everyone can afford to take years off making income to get another degree.
Wouldn’t it be nice if every doctor did a psychiatry residency and a cardiology residency and a surgical residency… you know, so that they can be the best doctor and provide the best services? And don’t get me started on PAs!
Shouldn’t all nurses be RNAs then? Why have CNAs and such?
I am sure you see my point.
It is absolutely true that there are bad master’s-level clinicians out there (case in point, see the therapist who brought this suit). There are also bad PhDs out there. Your degree does not determine how good of a therapist you are.
The solution is to do a much better job with state regulations and laws, which will only take you so far… once again, case in point. Colorado tried to do the right thing only to have the Supreme Court shut them down.
Your entire argument is summed up and rebutted here, if you care to read: https://www.psichi.org/page/042EyeWin00bActkinso
Well I ment have these higher regulations specifically for conversion therapy as a way to make it near impossible for anyone to do it.
I suggested that to get license for conversion therapy you must have supervised training by someone with a conversion therapy license. Of which this would be a closed system. As no one can have a license without someone else having it first to train them. Maybe that wasn't clear in my proposal.
Conservatives push laws like this all the time that basically make it so no exceptions can meet the qualifications for the exceptions.
Why not do the same ?
And yeah there are great therapist with masters and terrible ones with PhDs. I only referred to statistics.
Statistically, PhD are more likely to use evidence based therapies like CBT and have better patient outcomes.
But CBT can be given by a master's holder.
I've definitely met people with masters doing therapy who are much more informed and scientific minded than some PhDs Ive met.
Kaley Chiles has a Master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, and is a Licensed Professional Counselor and Licensed Addiction Counselor in Colorado.
A bunch of places had that information but not the actual college(s) she earned her degrees at. Her LinkedIn has her education, but I don’t want to log in to view it. I did see the logos and they confirm this information that I eventually tracked down:
Okay thank you for tracking that down. So it was a Christian university where they got their clinical degree.
That tracks.
It's not apa accredited. It's "accredited" by cacrep.
Cacrep mostly does accreditation for counseling programs.
Apa for PhD and PsyD.
It's unclear what their requirements are other than "meets state guidelines".
But it appears to be a standard accreditation in the U.S.
https://denverseminary.edu/program/master-of-arts-in-counseling-licensure/clinical-mental-health/
"Accredited" by
https://www.cacrep.org/