Feedback Page # 3.
Cedar Park Church, Bothell, WA.
Regarding alleged false advertising
of counseling qualifications
The Cedar Park Church
web site offers
professional counseling to its members and the community. It's a great service. But we believe
that the Cedar Park Counseling Network website advertises some of the counseling qualifications in an unprofessional and misleading way.
The graphic below explains the nature of the CounselingSeattle.com complaint. Following that is
correspondence with Cedar Park Church regarding the problem.
Understanding the Complaint.
What Is Cedar Park Church Counseling Doing?
Compare:
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Acceptable --
Licensed
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VS.
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Cedar Park Church --
Misleading
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John Smith, MA, LMHC
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VS.
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John Smith, MA, MHC
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LMHC
means a Washington State Licensed Mental Health
Counselor. General requirements for this
licensure is a masters degree in a counseling related field,
passing a state examination, and 3,000 hours of supervised
counseling by an approved supervisor.
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VS.
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MHC looks similar and suggests
mental health counselor, but MHC is NOT an
authorized counselor acronym approved by the state and its
use is NOT authorized by any national
counseling organization. CounselingSeattle.com holds
that using MHC as part of a counselor's credentials is
misleading to the public and therefore an unethical
practice.
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Licensed
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VS.
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Cedar Park Church --
Misleading
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John Smith, MA, LMFT
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VS.
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John Smith, MA, MFT
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LMFT
means a Washington State Licensed Marriage and Family
Therapist. General requirements for this
licensure is a masters degree in a counseling related field,
passing a state examination, and 3,000 hours of supervised
counseling by an approved supervisor.
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VS.
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MFT looks similar and suggests
mental health counselor, but MFT is NOT an
authorized counselor acronym approved by the state and its
use by a counselor who is not licensed is prohibited
by the American Association of Marriage and Family
Counselors. Using MFT as part of a counseling credential is
misleading to the public and therefore an unethical
practice.
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Standard
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VS.
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Cedar Park Church --
Misleading
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John Smith, MA
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VS.
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John Smith, MA, CFT
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Counselors have masters degrees
in a number of degrees in psychology or counseling fields
and represent this with the simple initials "MA."
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VS.
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RE CFT: Unlicensed counselors often resort to using
all the initials that can be found on the face of their
degree. In this example, the Cedar Park counselor has
a degree with a concentration in child and family therapy. But
throwing in these extra initials as if they represented
additional licensure or certification is unethical.
[The university that issued the
degree agrees.]
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Now take a look at the Cedar Park Church site's counseling page.
Then close that page and return here to read the correspondence, below.
[Below: Correspondence arranged
in chronological order reading down:]
Faced with an ethical dilemma,
what authority does Cedar Park church turn to?
↓
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A.
A few months ago, a licensed counselor emailed me about the Cedar Park Church counseling website page
as a possible "acronym offender." Cedar Park offers counseling services and makes extensive
use of the acronym "MHC" (and a couple of other misleading acronyms: MFT and CPT) in the credentials
of their counselors.
I sent email notice to the director of the counselor program and to the general email
address for the Cedar Park Church and added the church to my unethical counselors page.
A couple of months later I received the following letter
from their attorney, which I categorize as
hostile and threatening. (I'm not surprised. No one likes to be confronted out of the blue,
and it is difficult to admit the church is doing something unethical,) Floyd Else, Webmaster
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B.
December 18, 2008
Cedar Park
Church
Assembly of God
16300 - 112th Ave NE
Bothell, WA 98011
Dear Mr.
Else:
We write in response to your October 31, 2007 correspondence alleging that Cedar Park
Counseling Network has unethically used certain credential to describe its
counselors. According to your October 31st Correspondence your website, Seattlecounseling.com
lists the Cedar Park Counseling Network as unethical and unprofessional counselors. We have
verified that you listed Cedar Park on your website as unethical and unprofessional
counselors. Your actions have been published to the general public and have
defamed Cedar Park Counseling Network and its individual counselors.
If you do not remove this listing on or before December 31, 2008 and issue a
mutually acceptable retraction statement to be published on Seattlecounseling.com, Cedar
Park will pursue all available remedies against you, you professional licenses and
your website.
At the outset it should be noted that you are not employed by the State of Washington or any other government entity
that licenses or regulates counselors in Washington. Nor are you affiliated with a non-government
association or agency for the specific purposes of regulating, certifying or regulating Washington counselors. As
such your actions are not being done under the umbrella, supervision or protection of any regulating body.
Further, prior to posting our organization on your website as unethical and unprofessional, you made no effort to
contact Cedar Park counseling Network regarding your concerns or even to ascertain what professional associations Cedar Park
and its individual counselors belong. Have you verified that Cedar Park's counselors belong to the American
association of Christian counselors, the American Mental Health Counselors Association or the American Association of
Marriage and Family Therapists? Your publication of false and damaging statements about Cedar Park lead to the invariable
conclusion that you really are not concerned about resolving you perceived counseling issues but creating website traffic and
business for yourself.
A review of the State of Washington's Department of Health regulations reveals that it has not established regulations
regarding the use of Mental Health Counselor (MHC) initials or title. See, WAC 246-809-010, RCW 18.225.010-020
and RCW 18.225.100. The State of Washington is responsible for licensing and governing mental health counselors. Any
regulations promulgated by the State are controlling on this issue and as we just noted, there are no regulations directly
dealing with your allegations. If a counselor complies with the foregoing regulations they are complying with the
legal requirement set by the State of Washington and your assertion to the contrary is without a factual or legal basis
and is patently false.
Further, we would also note that we have contacted the State of Washington Department of Health regarding your assertions and they
informed us that a counselor may use MHC to describe a mental health counselor but may not use LMHC unless they are in fact a
Licensed Mental Health Counselor.
Finally, the Code of Ethics of the American Mental Health CounselorsAssociation also does not address the use of the term "
Mental Health Counselor" See: AMHCA Code of Ethics, Professional Issues, Principle 7. The Code of Ethics
addresses competence, education, training, experience, and informed consent but not the use of the MHC initials or title.
Your cite to Principle 8.6 on Advertising conveniently avoids having to determine whether the use of MHC is appropriate.
In conclusion, we a willing to meet to discuss a solution to this situation and if you are willing to meet please contact me at
your earliest convenience. However, if you are unwilling to discuss a solution to this situation and
if you do not remove Cedar Park Counseling Network from Seattlecounseling.com and any other website or publication on or before December
31, 2008 and issue a mutually acceptable retraction statement, Cedar Park will pursue all available remedies against you, your
professional licenses and your website.
Very truly
yours,
s/Benjamin C.
Waggoner
Benjamin C.
Waggoner
General Counsel
Cc: Dr. Joseph B. Fuiten
Dr. Phil Templeton
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Floyd's Soliloquy
[A soliloquy is when a character speaks aloud to himself, as if he is thinking
out loud,
in order to inform the audience about his thoughts or motivations.]
Oh, for pity sakes. For once I would like someone to just
say, "Wow, I see what you mean! Thanks for pointing it out. I'll fix that right away!"
But no. The typical response seems to be,
"What right do you have to accuse me of doing something wrong! I'll get you for that!"
Nope, I'm not a cop and I am not an employee of a
state agency. (Never claimed to be.) But that doesn't mean that I don't know what I
am talking about. Actually, I'm more like the little kid in the story "The
Emperor's New Clothes" who cries out, "But he has nothing on!"
The crowd realizes the kid is stating the obvious. But the Emperor holds his head high and
continues the procession. (I would think he'd want to cover his behind.)
I thought a church would want to know that they were doing
something that could mislead the public. This is small potatoes by comparison, but no wonder it took
churches so long to deal with priests who were abusing children. Just don't want to admit they might
be wrong. I guess that I am just lucky to live in a time and place where the church can't burn me at
the stake as a heretic or have me thrown in the dungeon for life.
Well...their letter tells me what sort of folks I'm dealing
with and what to expect from them. I suppose, if I compost all this
stuff they've given me, perhaps I can grow some huge tomato plants next summer. In the
meantime, I'd better send a reply to their attorney's letter....
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HAGAR By Chris Browne-- King Features Syndicate January 15, 2009
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My hero, Hagar. (Thanks, Chris Browne.)
Perhaps I can win in the "over seventy"
category!
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C.
CounselingSeattle LLC.
PO Box 6714 Bellevue WA 98008
December 24, 2008
Cedar Park Church
16300 112th Ave NE
Bothell, WA 98011
Dear Dr. Fuiten and Dr. Templeton:
I write to you rather than to your attorney,
because it seems to me inappropriate for a church with multiple ministers and faithful
lay persons to call upon an attorney to clarify ethical issues. You surely have more
than adequate resources for ethical discussion within your congregation.
Furthermore, I am disappointed that you did not issue an invitation to sit down with
your church leadership for clarification of issues instead of (or at a minimum before)
having an attorney write a threatening letter. These actions do not reflect well on
a faith community.
Let me clarify the issue. The counselor’s
page of Cedar Park Church web site: http://www.cedarpark.org/cpcn/staff.php
and certain counselors therein, are listed on my website’s “unethical / unprofessional
counselors” because of the misleading use of the abbreviation or acronym, MHC. The use of
this acronym, leads the uninformed public to believe that your counseling staff possesses
a counseling licensure which does not exist. Since Washington State began licensing
counselors and the acronym LMHC was approved to indicate a Licensed Mental Health
Counselor, the counselors’ use of LMHC is quite appropriate, but the church’s use of
use the meaningless and unapproved “MHC” in (as if it is a counselor credential) is
clearly misleading to the public and, therefore, unethical.
At the time the information was published to
CounselingSeattle.com, I sent email notification to both the clinical director
and to the general email address for the church. I expected that my emails
would have led the church to reappraise the ethics of their actions and to correct them.
Instead, I am surprised to find that the church has turned to an attorney for a
review of ethics and morality of the church’s actions. However, I am happy
to find that when faced with a moral dilemma your parishioners can always turn to the
wise advice of your lawyer.
You mention that these counselors are
members of a number of national counseling organizations. I respect that. Describing
those memberships is an excellent and appropriate way to communicate expertise,
but that does not excuse the inappropriate description of licensure that your web page
represents. MHC is clearly displayed on your website to represent “mental health
counselor,” but the use of MHC is not authorized or approved by ANY counseling
organization that you mention.
While I firmly believe that the actions of
the church site are a violation of the law governing counselors, we must face the fact
that basically the Washington State Health Department is a political organization and
not equipped to take on the unlawful, unethical, unprofessional or immoral
behavior of a church based counseling website. Further, being a government
organization, the health department is reluctant to deal with “separation of church
and state” issues and also finds the use of meaningless acronyms such as MHC to fall
under “freedom of speech” issues.
In the last two years, as part of my
consumer protection action, I have confronted hundreds of parties who were
mistakenly or deliberately using meaningless acronyms to mislead the public about their
qualifications. Around the United States and around the world, people searching
“unethical counselor” or “unprofessional counselor” finds the CounselingSeattle.com
page on unprofessional counselors—which includes certain counselors on your website.
http://www.counselingseattle.com/consumer/unethical.htm
The people who are listed on my unethical
counselor web page are removed as soon as I learn they have removed the offending,
misleading acronyms from their website credentials. I will remove my reference to
the counseling arm of Cedar Park Church as soon as they remove the offending initials.
Your threatening letter to me provides
adequate exposure to your negotiation tactics. I do not need to meet with you to
discuss your offensive behavior and face further strong-arm tactics.
I am not intimidated by your threats against
me. Rather I will see any action you may take as an opportunity to further publicize
the church’s disappointing behavior. I am currently assembling a list of Licensed
Mental Health Counselors who have indicated their willingness to defend their licensure
by marching in front of the church—before, during and after services—with literature
and signs conveying our concerns to your members.
It is one thing for Cedar Park Church to act
in ignorance. That is easily forgiven and forgotten. But it is a totally different
thing to act in defiance of the common good. I do not intend to say anything to reflect
on the ability, sincerity, or skill of your counselors. Rather, I seek to have the
church administration fairly and ethically present the counselor’s qualifications to
the public.
Sincerely,
Floyd Else, MA, LMHC, NCC, MAC
Webmaster: http://www.CounselingSeattle.com
CounselingSeattle LLC
PO Box 6714, Bellevue, WA 98008-0714
cc: Benjamin Waggoner, General Counsel
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This was page three of
Feedback Letters. To Read Page One of
Feedback Letters
You Can Help ↓
Call to Action:
CounselingSeattle.com holds that it is unethical and unprofessional
for counselors to advertise their counseling or coaching practice with the misleading degree acronyms or meaningless generic
initials. In doing so they are falsely implying that they have some special training certification or licensure
beyond their degree and deliberately mislead people searching for a counselor--people who are
in pain and despair, distressed, often temporarily or chronically mentally ill, or their loved ones who are searching for
qualified help. [Please see the extracts from Washington law and various professional
ethics codes and see if you don't agree!]
If you agree with CounselingSeattle.com that counselors,
therapists or coaches who continue to use the unauthorized or misleading generic professional initials such "
BA, MFT," "MA, MHC," or "MA, CFT"
are confusing and misleading the public, please help us by communicating your concern. Give these counselors a
call or an email and let them know how YOU feel about it--and why!
Perhaps YOU with your personal experiences either as a user of mental
will understand. Your help is appreciated.
Floyd Else, MA, LMHC,
Webmaster
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This was page three of
Feedback Letters. Read Page One.
Read Page Two.
Return to the Unprofessional / Unethical Page
To top -- Cedar Park Church in Bothell WA. and alleged unethical advertising of counselor qualifications
by Cedar Park Counseling Network--Feedback Page 3
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