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Lisa Marie Bobby, PhD, LMFT, BCC
Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby is a licensed psychologist, licensed marriage and family therapist, board-certified coach, AAMFT clinical supervisor, host of the Love, Happiness, and Success Podcast and founder of Growing Self.
Imagine waking up one morning, logging into LinkedIn, and seeing job postings that make your heart sink—companies hiring mental health coaches instead of licensed therapists. And not just hiring them, but paying them a fraction of a therapist’s salary. That’s exactly what happened to me, and let me tell you, I nearly spit out my kombucha.
At first, I thought, Surely, this is a mistake? But as I kept digging, I realized this wasn’t just one rogue job posting. It was part of a growing trend—one that could redefine the landscape of mental health care and impact our profession in ways we can’t afford to ignore. If you’re wondering what this means for you, your clients, and the future of therapy, you’re in the right place. In my latest episode of Love, Happiness, and Success for Therapists, I break it all down—and more importantly, we talk about what we can do about it.
Mental Health Coaching: The Wild West of the Therapy World
If you’ve been in the therapy world for more than a minute, you already know this: becoming a licensed therapist takes years of education, clinical training, supervised hours, and ongoing professional development. We don’t just wake up one day and decide, You know what? I think I’ll help people process trauma today.
Mental health coaching, on the other hand? No standardized education requirements. No clinical oversight. No ethical board. And yet, more and more companies are putting coaching services in front of clients as if they’re equivalent to therapy. And let’s be real—most consumers don’t know the difference. They see mental health coaching and think, Great! This is cheaper and faster than therapy! (Yikes.)
Mental Health Coaching vs. Therapy
Therapy is for clinical issues. Diagnosable conditions like anxiety, depression, PTSD—you know, the things we spent years studying and training for. Coaching, by definition, is not clinical treatment. Coaches are supposed to focus on non-clinical personal development, like goal-setting and motivation. But what happens when someone with trauma walks into a coaching session, thinking they’re getting therapy?
They might not get the support they need. Or worse, they might get bad advice that does real harm.
Corporate Cost-Cutting & The Rise of “Coaches”
Why are companies leaning into mental health coaching? Simple: money. Hiring coaches instead of therapists means they can:
- Pay significantly lower rates (think $25-$30/hour instead of $100-$200/hour for licensed professionals).
- Avoid licensing and liability requirements.
- Scale mental health services quickly without investing in quality care.
And here’s where it gets really concerning: These same corporations are marketing mental health coaching as equivalent to therapy. So clients—many of whom have real clinical needs—think they’re getting professional help when they’re actually talking to someone with a weekend certification.
That’s not just misleading. It’s dangerous.
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