Going Beyond Credential
Dr. M. Scott Peck, psychiatrist and bestselling author of "The Road Less Traveled," wrote:
"A therapist's ability bears very little relationship to any credentials he or she might have. Love and courage and wisdom cannot be certified by academic degrees. For instance, 'board-certified' psychiatrists, the therapists with the most credcntials, undergo sufficiently rigorous training so that no one can be relatively certain of not falling into the hands of a charlatan. But a psychiatrist is not necessarily any better a therapist than a psychologist, a social worker, or a minister - or even as good. Indeed two of the very greatest therapists I know have never even graduated from college."
As a psychotherapist myself, I do life. I do healing - not medicine, psychiatry, or psychology. Though I may have those traditional credentials, my main "credential" is I've owned a wound. "I've been there." Or, I'm recovering from it. That, the essence of my life, I bring into the recovery process to help heal others.
Dr. Peck's point resonates. It takes more than "credential" for a therapist or healer to be truly one.
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