Psychotherapy Shouldn’t Be Fatal, But Lethal Fraud Still Exists

Thousands of people worldwide are in need of mental health services, but in many areas, adequately trained and appropriately certified professionals are not available. When this happens, this may be fertile ground for fraudsters who promise to cure any mental health or physical illness with unique, fraudulent “therapies” that do nothing but scam the patients who come to them. There are even those in the field who have licenses in mental healthcare and who hang out shingles that present them in a manner that is not appropriate to their licensing.

I recall one man who put a sign on his lawn and in his office that he was “Dr.” when, in fact, he had a master’s degree. This fraud was included on his letterhead, where he put a number that appeared to any unaware person to be a licensed number. It was not his license at all but a number for some other activity in which he engaged.

The licensing board had repeatedly warned him to rectify the situation, but he didn’t because he knew that there wasn’t enough staff to go out and check on his actions. Everyone thought he was a medical doctor or a psychiatrist in the town where he practiced.

Another large practice had secretaries administering psychological test materials for which they neither had experience nor degrees. Ethically, they should not have had access to these materials.

Everyone who came to the practice was put through a series of computerized tests, and their insurance was charged for all of this unnecessary testing. The practice reaped millions of dollars a year, and nothing was ever done to the man who owned it. He even charged insurance for missed therapy sessions, which is outright insurance fraud.

The secretary administered a basic IQ test at another office, not a therapy office, but offering a different service. The testing material was kept on her desk. Nothing was ever done about this, either because the man in charge was not a licensed healthcare professional, and he was never investigated for this practice.

Anyone wishing to check on a licensed mental health counselor can go to the state–by–state listing on the Internet. For licensed psychologists there is also a similar listing. Psychiatrists are listed as medical doctors.

Then, there are those who call themselves doctors who may have degrees in things other than healthcare-related specialties, such as administration or even history. The term is not carefully regulated and may be used by so many people that it is, and can be, intended to deceive.

There are also those who catfish on the Internet and present themselves as something other than who they truly are. I am speaking about authors who delve into the intimate, personal lives of young people and then use this material to write books. Is it ethical? Do these people really respond to anything regarding ethics? I find it absolutely untenable.

What about those who “graduated” from schools that have been shut down because they were nothing but diploma mills? Yes, they are out there, and when they write their website profiles, they carefully exclude any mention of the school and say they have “studied” topics such as neurobiology or science.

Taking one course could be seen as “studying.” Are they expert in any area? Deceit and deception are their watchwords, and you are their intended victims. Bestseller means nothing. Please do not be misled by this term.

Defrauding Patients and Insurance

I’ve written about this before, but the material requires updating because these practices continue to emerge and must be dealt with legally.

Today, we are still confronted by those who would deceive us and by doing so, become extremely wealthy, but the consequences for the people who come to them can be fatal. These individuals sought help after they believed there was no help from traditional sources of medicine or therapy, and they came wanting to believe that these “healers” offered the only hope for these patients.

Now, the curtain is being pulled back, and lawsuits and legal battles are being fought as some people have died. One man has now been charged with more than one incident of manslaughter when he advised someone to stop taking their insulin and instead use his “slapping” therapy. The man died.

Federal charges say a woman from Minnesota sold a fake “microcurrent therapy” device across the country that she said could fix almost any illness or condition but actually burned or hurt people who tried to use it

Not only are these fake healers being uncovered, but those who promote unprofessional therapies that any professional organizations do not recognize are being outed, too. Unfortunately, once their papers were published, too many people readily picked them up and used them as references in their papers.

Can you imagine that up to 10,000 professionally published papers had to be retracted for various forms of data manipulation or outright fraud? This form of publication pollution takes time to discover, but once it is discovered, we know that the damage has been done to too many people.

One form of alleged therapy is conversion therapy, which claims to change people’s sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual. Every professional organization has debunked this, and it is no longer viewed as valid by anyone but the practitioners who make money from it. How many people have been psychologically damaged by this therapy that perpetuates feelings of shame?

There are no magic healers out there, but they will continue presenting themselves as such, and it is up to consumers to check everyone’s background carefully. Criminals are always looking for new ways to make money and unfortunate, hopeless people on whom to prey.