New Attack on Exempt Practitioners

Alternative/Unlicensed

Pirate Treasure MapOn Thursday I attended the third meeting of the Licensure Exemption Workgroup, whose purpose is to eliminate the licensing exemption for counselors and family therapists.

The idea is to introduce legislation for this in the 2017 full session of the Oregon Legislature, not the current 2016 short session.

Oddly, this attack on the counseling exemption is not being spearheaded by the counseling board (the Oregon Board of Licensed Professional Counselors and Therapists, OBLPCT), but by the psychology board (OBPE).

Why would the psychology board muscle onto another board’s turf? Because that’s what they do.

Rewriting History

The psychology board published a backgrounder on the licensing exemption that strives to explain it without understanding it first. You see, rather than contacting the counselors who are familiar with the counseling exemption, and who know its history, how it works today, its pros and cons, and its supporters and detractors, they chose to study only its legislative history, in isolation, without talking to anybody . This aversion to human contact is typical of the OBPE.

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Communicating with the Psychology Board, or Trying To

Bullying From Psychology Board

Communication with the OBPE has not been establishedHere’s an email exchange between myself and Charles Hill, the Executive Director of the Oregon Board of Psychologist Examiners and the Oregon Board of Licensed Professional Counselors and Therapists. I think it speaks for itself.

My email to Hill:

Date: Mon, 8 Feb 2016 15:57:19 -0800

Subject: Licensure exemption workgroup
From: Robert Plamondon <robert@plamondon.com>
To: charles.j.hill@state.or.us

Mr. Hill,

If I were to submit a document, in advance of the meeting, for distribution to the members of the Licensure Exemption Workgroup, would it be distributed?

As you know, I suspect that communications sent to the OBPE are routinely withheld from the board members, and you refused to answer when I asked you about this directly. However, you promptly answered that, if I sent
material to the OBLPCT, it would be distributed.

Which rules are used with the Licensure Exemption Workgroup?

Robert

Hill’s reply to me, which I reproduce in full:

From: Charles J. Hill <Charles.J.Hill@state.or.us>
Date: Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 2:03 PM
Subject: RE: Licensure exemption workgroup
To: Robert Plamondon <robert@plamondon.com>

Dear Mr. Plamondon,

At this point in time, I am not willing to put any responses to your comments in writing because you have repeatedly twisted, ridiculed and misrepresented things I, or members of OBPE, have said in the past, then published or verbally stated your misinterpretations as fact.  This is misleading to the public and I do not wish to support it.

I will be more than happy to respond to your questions when I see evidence of accurate reporting on your part.

Sincerely,
Charles J. Hill
Executive Director
Oregon Board of Psychologist Examiners, (503) 378-4154  x4
Oregon Board of Licensed Professional Counselors and Therapists, (503) 378-5499  x4

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Department of Justice Puts a Stop to Psychology Board Pettiness

Bullying From Psychology Board

OBPE can never resist doing the wrong thing.The Oregon Department of Justice just stopped another act of pettiness by the Oregon Board of Psychologist Examiners (OBPE), as described by University of Oregon professor Bill Harbaugh in his widely read UO Matters blog. Harbaugh is investigating the Psychology Board’s handling of the UO counseling records scandal, where the Psychology Board plans to deliver a mere slap on the wrist to Shelly Kerr, a licensed psychologist.

Shelly Kerr
Teflon Psychologist Shelly Kerr.

Kerr is accused of copying confidential records of a gang-rape victim without the knowledge or consent of the victim or her counselor, and delivering them to the University’s attorneys. For this, the Psychology Board proposes a slap on the wrist.

Where the Board once, for example, gave Christian Wolff a one-year suspension and a $10,000 fine for merely abbreviating “Psychologist Associate” to “PsyA,”* they calculate the value of betraying a rape victim at a $5,000 fine, and no suspension.** As you can imagine, this case is receiving a lot of attention.

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We’re Exempt! Boards Concede that Exemptions are Real

Alternative/Unlicensed, Bullying From Psychology Board

We're Exempt!After more than a year of foot-dragging, the Oregon Board of Psychologist Examiners has conceded that the licensing exemptions in Oregon law do, in fact, exist, and that exempt practitioners are outside the authority of the licensing boards.

We’re Exempt!

Specifically, the “educational exemption” in ORS 675.825(4) was conceded. This exemption allows anyone to practice counseling or marriage and family therapy without a license. And since the definitions of counseling and marriage and family therapy are so broad, this exemption also covers practitioners who don’t even think of themselves as counselors or family therapists — hypnotherapists, NLP practitioners, and so on.

The Board’s Predicament

What kind of meeting was it? Let’s consider the context:

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How to Keep Client Information Confidential

Alternative/Unlicensed, Therapy Practices

university-of-oregon-confidentiality-caseHow confidential is confidential information? Oregon is rolling in mental-health scandal issues right now. The one that’s most in the news is from the University of Oregon, where a rape victim went to the student mental health center, and when she accused some athletes of the crime, the University’s lawyers plucked her records out of her files. This was done without the consent of the patient or her therapist, by the psychologist in charge of the counseling center, whose job title, Vice President for Student Life, has thus become a sad joke. People at the center who protested had their jobs threatened.

No one has been arrested in either the rape or the theft of the documents. All that’s likely to happen is a disciplinary hearing in front of the Oregon State Bar regarding the University’s lawyers who asked for the documents, and one in front of the Oregon Board of Psychologist Examiners for the University vice president (who is a licensed psychologist) for handing them over.

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