Therapist's: Resume Padding or Poor Math Skills?

The question of a therapist's required number of supervised hours prior to licensing came up in another thread. It made me wonder how many therapists pad their resumes by counting those hours/years (and other related activities) as experience.

My examples of resume padding:

I went back to do a license search on a previous therapist that moved away. I found that she's only been licensed 5 years, although she listed 14 years' experience. And another that I'd schedule an initial appointment with listed a similar number of years' experience, but it was clear to me that she was counting several years spent working at at crisis center before even being in grad school.

Have any of you noticed this in searching for therapists? (btw, my current one knows how to add and everything lined up with number of licensed years.) It reminds me of trying to beef up a resume when I was first looking for work, counting anything and everything as experience.

No, never have run into that.

ahaha Of course. You have the kind of luck with therapists I can only dream of.

True. My therapist's credentials where given on the insurance website when I went through trying to find him, and he has his diplomas, licenses, etc. hanging in his office. (So do my doctors, including pdoc). The other two I worked with did also. I know some people might not like a T or doc who displays his diplomas and licenses and certifications, but I do. Probably the educator in me. It's always been an early point of conversation as I find those kinds of things interesting.

I am not surprised. Therapists are not more ethical or moral than anyone else by simple virtue of having been educated in therapeutic techniques.

Also true.

Years of experience often do count the years prior to licensing, as it's still work experience as a clinician. If they put something that implied their hours worked prior to licensing counted towards their post licensing experience, I may be leary (if they said "20 years experience as an lcsw" when they should have put "20 years as a social worker"). I've not encountered it much though.
Also, just because a therapist works at a crisis center does not mean they are not working as a therapist. It may not be long term counseling or counseling in private practice, but it's still counseling/therapy. The agency I go to for my therapy also has a crisis unit. It is staffed by clinicians. They are all licensed or license eligible clinicians.

I reread your post. If that clinician put those pre-grad school years as "experience in the field", is technically accurate, though somewhat deceptive.

Here's the difference for me: Experience prior to licensing does not count toward experience in seeing someone through a long course of therapy, which is what I need. Working at a crisis center only means she was good at talking to people in crisis, but says nothing about being able to manage long term therapy. To me, that is a huge issue. I need someone who can do more than 6 months to a year and has been through all the ups and downs, trials and errors, that come with long term therapy. That other stuff--social work, counseling in a school center--just doesn't count for me. They need to be specific about it. If they aren't, why not?

I am paying out of pocket and expect a well trained, experienced, honest-about-themselves, professional.

Just to add: I talked to my current therapist about this and she agreed that the number of licensed years matter a lot. I said under ten meant I was having to pay for their training and she agreed. It takes a looooong time to be experienced. For me, the clock starts when they are licensed and practicing in their area of expertise--for some, that will be the short term, jiffy lube type therapy; for others, it's the deeper long term therapy. I just want them to be up front about it and not so tricksy.

I don't think it's common for any professionals here to put their résumé online - I've never seen a T do that as far as I know. If they have a website (which many of them don't) they might put general information about their qualifications, but I don't think I've ever seen anybody specify how many years they have been working. But I honestly don't really know, because this is just my personal impression.

That's interesting. Is LinkedIn not a big thing where you are then?

Psychology today has listings where they usually post their years of experience

Aw come on!! You know you always say, being a t doesnt require a lot of math!

I do believe many of them became therapists because their math skills would not allow them to become accountants

experience after licensing doesn't necessarily mean they have had any more long-term clients either. with the push for more and more short-term therapies (at least in the US), most clinicians consider a year or 2 as "long-term". Insurance certainly considers that "long term" as well. It's actually quite frustrating, as I think there's merit in being able to build a trusting relationship with a clinician, and carrying that through the deeper work that needs to be done for some people.

Attitudes around care revolve around what insurance will and will not pay for. Many therapists rely on insurance to pay for visits. With the limnitations put on that, the general concensus on standards of care have shorter stints of therapy being the norm. When I was looking for a T here, the standard "length of therapy" was considered to be 12-20 weeks, at which point most of the clinicians I contacted would refer out to private-pay clinicians. When I called those, even they said the average length of therapy is about a year.
People on PC tend to be in therapy for longer, but I'm finding the average person seeking services doesn't deem anything longer than 6 months or so as necessary. I think that's reflected in the way the bios are written...

I agree though, I would prefer a T who had the experience of working longer-term with clients and seeing them through the ups and downs of the harder work. Especially with deeper-rooted issues like a history of abuse of assault (I'm still blown away by the mandate that the current agency I attend only provide short-term counseling around abuse and assault issues. I think they miss the boat on being able to build a trusting and stable relationship with their clients. I'm surprised anything actually gets resolved in only 4 months...).

You can't lie about those specific hours required for graduation and licensing because the state won't grant you a license. Experience listed on a resume is much broader and would include any work you've done related to your career, including your internship and other jobs held before your degree was completed.

The reality is that most consumers of therapy do not go long term. Most people, in general, see Ts for a year or less and there are many reasons. Sometimes it's insurance but it's often not. Some people never find a T they click with, some people resolved the issues they sought help for, and some people just don't have the time and interest to make the effort to go. So a lack of long term clients isn't a negative mark on a Ts resume. That's just not where most of the work is in the mental health system.

So true. I was trying to get into a day program, and they required that I had X amount of T sessions before accepting me. Well I was lacking 5, I think, and my T at the time said, "no problem, I'll just bill your insurance for 5 sessions and write that you did them". I think my jaw hit the floor. Of course I said NO, and that was pretty much the end with that T.

Exactly...experience can be a lot of things. Suppose they worked as a entry level mental health worker in college. Maybe they were an admin assistant for a shrinks office in HS. That's all relevant experience in the field.

My therapist says on her website that she has 20 years of experience. She has only been licensed for 15 years; I assume the other 5 years of experience include working as an intern while in graduate school and going through the licensing process. This doesn't really make a difference to me. I suppose I think of it in terms of my own field. I'm a professor and I would certainly count the 6 years I designed & taught college courses in grad school prior to earning my doctorate as "teaching experience." Anyone looking at my resume could see what year I earned my degree-- but if I was essentially doing the same job before and after (despite the salary difference!) I think it is fair to call it experience. Granted, if They are a newly minted T they should probably make that clear-- but at some point years of experience just become years.

I had a much, much, much better experience with a psychologist who just recently graduated than I did with an LPC who had 30 years of experience. I think some of them get burned out and experience means nothing or ends up being not useful. But I do understand the concept that experience might be a good thing. It isn't always though.

For me, it has to do with honesty and transparency about the experience they are advertising. The one that counted her years at a crisis center was very vague with me about the type of therapy she did--saying she was flexible--but when I kept pushing (over two phone calls) she admitted it was CBT. It was like pulling teeth to get that, though.

I guess I'm just saying there are some out there who fudge a lot. Maybe many of you have not found this to be the case, or don't mind. I do, because I really need someone who's in it for the long haul, and it's not their first rodeo.

Linkedin is big, but it is not a place I would personally go to look for health care people - besides, don't you have to be connected to somebody to be able to see their resume? (I have had a profile for a few years but never really used it for anything.)

True, but this is possible in any field. It's also unlikely for most professionals who are qualified and pretty competent. A T is no more likely to list a high school job or their first job out of college as "experience" than anyone else.

On websites like Vitals.com, the years of experience for MDs usually takes you to their year of graduation from medical school, which means their years as a resident is being counted as experience. It's not a lie, but can be slightly misleading since a residency lasts 4 years and is essentially their training. Therapists (Psychologists, Social Workers and Counselors) do the same thing. All of them have to do internships in school and a work for a certain amount of time after school before they are granted a license. It's more common for Ts to wait until they are established in the field before going into private practice. Where I live, there are too many therapists and too few regular clients for new Ts to make a real living working solely in private practice.

I would avoid new Ts that have only private practice experience like the plague. I'd much prefer one who has some years of clinical experience, even if its in a agency setting. Ts with experience with private clients only have no one watching or monitoring them from an objective viewpoint. These are Ts that would opt to pay someone to be their supervisor, which is just not reliable on a lot of levels.

That's how my T started. He worked in a hospital for several years which I've found really helpful for me because he's worked with serious mental illness and doesn't shy from it. Then he worked in the school district as a psychologist doing assessment and then eventually worked his way into private practice. He's been in private practice for I guess 25ish years now. I suspect he'll be thinking about retirement in the next 5 years or so.

Date of licensing doesn't necessarily tell you anything. My T was a LFMT before he was a PsyD, and he had to be re-licensed as a PsyD. In order to get that license he had to spend x amount of hours working under the supervision of a PsyD who was already licensed. Long story short, he was not licensed when I started seeing him, but he still had 15 years' experience. And he's good. Previous T supervised some of his hours I know, and he's actually been in the field longer than she has.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

He wasn't a licensed psychologist but he was a licensed therapist if he's an LMFT. That requires a masters in psychology which is the first part of getting a PhD. So your T just chose to advance from a masters level which is very is different from someone straight out of grad school.