Licensing of Psychotherapists in the United States: Evidence of Societal Regression?

Abstract

The idea of societal regression in Bowen family systems theory is illustrated with examples from the author's experience as a licensed psychologist, a student of the history of psychology in the United States, and the executive director of a Bowen family systems theory training center. An introduction to the fundamentals of Bowen family systems theory and its core concept of differentiation of self is presented followed by a consideration of characteristics of the concept of emotional process in society in Bowen theory, of which societal regression is a part. The author examines the question of whether licensing psychotherapists in the United States is evidence of societal regression and asks several questions: What was the threat that prompted the licensing of psychotherapists? Was this a real or imagined threat? What is the evidence? Two hypotheses are examined: (1) that the biggest threat was from incompetent, unqualified, unskilled, and unprincipled people pretending to be psychotherapists from whom the public needed protection and (2) that psychotherapists need economic protection. Drawbacks to licensing are considered followed by a consideration of the question, “If not licensing, then what?” A return to the core concept of differentiation of self in Bowen theory as one answer to this question concludes the article.

Permission, Protection, and Potency

“…To these, Douglas and Tudor (2007) added the overprotectiveness of rigid and often legalistic health-and-safety responses to the complexities of life, representative of the “Nanny state.” In some jurisdictions, the protection of the public has been used as an argument for the state registration of psychotherapists, despite the fact that there is no research evidence that supports this. The fact that proponents of such registration, and the statutory regulation that often goes with it, still pursue this reflects a psychology and politics of overregulation and protectionism (see Smith, 2011; Tudor, 2011). In this sense, and like permission, protection may also be patronizing and infantilizing, and, at worst, an example of the phoney insurance policy that gave rise to the original concept of the protection racket (Berne, 1964/1968).…”