License Not Needed
The matter of credentialing is not necessarily needed by professional psychologists if they are working in nonmedical and nonclinical fields, such as those doing organizational consulting work or serving as personal coaches. However, in many states, those professional psychologists without licenses often can not call themselves a “psychologist.” However, they can identify their degree on resumes and books. While they can’t call themselves psychologists, they can include information concerning their advanced degree in psychology.
All of this is a bit confusing and even ironic for not only the “psychologist” but also the general public. Fortunately, this issue of not being able to call oneself a “psychologist” if not clinically licensed is not necessarily a problem for many non-clinically trained psychologists. These professional psychologists often stay far away from the field of clinical psychology and psychotherapy. They wish to avoid the “stigma” of being called a “shrink.” They prefer to call themselves “consultant”, “coach” or “counsellor.”
There is another irony associated with the certification of professionals to provide clinical services. It seems that the licensing exam is usually geared primarily to the acquisition of clinically based knowledge. Yet those who have received education and training that is not clinically based must pass this exam if they are to call themselves “psychologist.” In California, it has become even more restrictive. One can’t get licensed anymore unless the title of one’s degree includes the word “clinical.”
Blizzards and Doctorates
We who live in the United States seem to be confronted with blizzard conditions when seeking to find personal nonmedical assistance or when searching for the right career in the human services. The blizzard is produced by the significant influx of new professional human service professions and degrees, the profusion of sometimes conflicting regulations, the appearance of voluminous licensing requirements, and the stifling abundance of restrictive laws concerning the scope of practice.
Amid this human service blizzard, we are looking for some stability, certainty, simplicity, clarity, calm, and consistency. These are desirable conditions that counter what has been identified as VUCA-Plus conditions (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity, turbulence, and contradiction) (Bergquist, 2025). These desired conditions can readily coalesce around the term “Doctor.” In a swirling blizzard, we might be looking for something we understand (at some level) and upon which (hopefully) we can rely. “Doctors” come to the rescue and lead us out of the swirling human service blizzard of the mid-21st Century in the United States. Nothing but “Doctor” makes sense (at least as founded in long-standing lore and tradition).
