Kathleen’s Public Comments LMFT Board Meeting 7-19-24
My name is Kathleen Mills, LPC-S and co-founder of the Association for Mental Health Professionals.
I think we ALL know and understand that our profession has been hijacked by the social left. Our universities, accrediting institutions and professional organizations are all adopting that ideology and feeding it to you under the guise of “diversity and equality of outcome” which has nothing to do with a scientific approach to determining Generally Accepted Standards of Care.
With Clinicians
My deep experience in dealing with other clinicians is telling me that:
- Therapists are becoming very disillusioned with the decline and direction of this profession.
Way more than a handful of licensed counselors have told me they’re considering turning in their license and becoming a coach. This is a problem! - There is a universal complaint about over-regulation. They feel like they’re being micro-managed in both Texas code ethics and social-ethics to fit someone else’s idea of what they should be.
- The few that do speak up feel like no one is listening which is a large part of why more licensees don’t participate in your board meetings.
With the Public
My interactions with the public are telling me that:
- The Covid incident greatly undermined society’s trust in our medical community including mental health counselors. That trust will continue to erode for years to come as the vaccine injuries and deaths continue to mount.
- Joe Citizen is confused. He no longer trusts the mental health community to deliver a quality of care consistent with their traditional values.
- Faith in Big Pharma is declining rapidly and people are actively seeking alternatives to “another pill”.
With Grad Students
And my experience dealing with grad students and associates is telling me that:
- Students are SCARED in the university environment. Scared of their professors, of being bullied and failed for having opposing views. WHY should anyone be SCARED of a liberal arts education environment??
- Far too many students are deciding to pursue other professions because the crap they must endure in school is simply not worth it. And the regulation they must navigate upon graduation is overwhelming. We fix this problem and we don’t have a mental health worker shortage anymore.
We have a systemic problem that is going to take years to fix and it starts with this board. If we don’t it will get worse. Neither the public nor your licensee base are going to accept a socialist left agenda for their lives or careers because America was not founded on those principles.
I speak for all of the members of our organization and quite a large number of others when I say we would like to see our boards act on the following:
- Until our higher learning institutions restore trust by returning to an intellectually honest environment of inclusive debate, STOP listening to academia; it’s broken.
- STOP listening to any professional organization that promotes a far-left socialist agenda or promotes counseling practice not based on peer-reviewed science.
- Get OUT of the social-ethics business completely. That’s NOT your job.
- Reduce the volume of regulation during the Quadrennial Review substantially. A 10-20 page reduction would mend a lot of fences and be a good start. Consider the following:
- REPEAL the entire CE Renewal requirement adopted last year including the 50% rule. ALL of it!
- REPEAL the telehealth requirement. This is covered by HIPAA already.
- REPEAL the Crisis Management requirement. Less than 5% of all counselors will ever utilize this material and systems are already in place for this.
TEXAS LMFT ‘s are professionals who run their own businesses, help others get started, and see clients while delivering first class care. COMBINE that with the insignificant number of disciplinary actions, thanks to BHEC, and I think you can see we are doing a pretty damn good job of monitoring ourselves.
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About the Author
Kathleen Mills is a fire-breathing, 33+ year veteran of the counseling world. People react in one of two ways when evil touches their lives: some retreat in fear, and some advance without pause to engage it. Kathleen falls firmly in the latter group. She owns and operates Life Tree Counseling in Frisco, TX, possesses a tireless work-ethic, and eagerly awaits your arrival into her growing army of warriors.
