How to Spot Bogus Academic and Professional Credentials

I can run off a Ph.D. degree today on my computer and give it to you, and you can say that you have a Ph.D. without breaking any law. The only time you can actually be prosecuted is when you offer your services to the public in a license-protected occupation, such as a psychologist, counselor, or social worker; but even here, there are exceptions.  In New Jersey, for example, a non-profit organization such as a church can hire you as a psychologist or a counselor  without having to comply with formal licensing requirements, because you are not actually holding your services out to the public, they are, regardless of whether or not you have a real degree, a phony degree, or no degree at all. Many non-profits do employ licensed people, of course; and there are many fine instructors in non-profit organizations who do not have the full preparation which is required for working or teaching in public institutions.

If you want to open a practice as a "psychic astrologer," with a Ph.D. that you designed this morning on your word processor,  there's nothing stopping you, because "psychic astrologer" is not a license-protected occupation -- although you may still have to pay for a business license before you can actually open a practice and collect fees for your services. Generally, these occupations operate according to the "Golden Rule:" He who has the gold makes the rules!

In any field, a degree which is recognized by established institutions of higher learning must be offered by the officially recognized accrediting body in your locality, and no other, because diploma mills are very good at forming legitimate-appearing organizations which happily "accredit" each other. Here is a list of all officially accredited post-secondary institutions from the U.S. Department of Education.

Since there aren't any restrictions on forming an "educational institution," it is easy to incorporate "universities" with impressive-sounding titles, offering courses and degrees in all sorts of subjects, which may then group themselves into unsanctioned regional associations to accredit each other -- and they do!  To muddy the waters even further, some States maintain "lists" of educational institutions, which some of these institutions then use as evidence that they are "recognized" by that State, because it is all too easy to confuse being on a State list  with being "accredited by the State in question, which usually involves an official visit by a State accrediting team and a thorough review of the qualifications of every member of the faculty,

Whenever you hear someone say that they "can paper the wall of their office" with their academic degrees, or you see an official-looking diploma signed by people who have a large number of degrees in several different fields after their name, or someone has claimed to earn a large number of degrees in just a few years, this should be a signal to examine the situation further. (Just think how many years or decades it would take to actually earn all those degrees!)

The best way to establish whether or not an accrediting body is legitimate is to call up the Registrar's office of an academic institution which you trust, and inquire as to the legitimacy of the accrediting body of the college or university which you are asking about -- but sometimes even the legitimate institutions themselves get fooled by a person who has begun teaching there with a bogus credenttial. 

When I was teaching, every few years I would hear about somebody who was booted off the faculty because their diploma was found to be a fake. By the same token, professed membership in the American Psychological Association is not in itself proof of professional standing, since A P.A. lacks the financial resources to police the Internet for impostors.

Here in New Jersey, there is a woman up the road from me who advertises that she has a degree in psychic astrology and hynotizes people to tell them the name of their guardian angel. I once complained about her ro the New Jersey Psychological Association, and I was told that because neither hypnosis nor psychic astrology are regulated by State law, there was nothing that they could do. 

It is no crime to posess an unaccredited degree. The world is awash with them! But before you take a course or a workshop from such a person, or pay good money to attend one of their conference presentations, it is usually a good idea to check out their credentials ahead of time. If you are met with silence, evasiveness, or a personal attack, this is usually good reason to suspect their qualifications. 

Caveat emptor: let the buyer beware!

Don't Let Self-Proclaimed "Experts" Steal Your Money!

In the words of Michael Ellner, "The path that the people who beat the odds take does not seem to be as important as the way they walk the path that they have chosen. This is based on extensive experience assisting people with life-threatening diseases and conditions and assisting people living with medically unexplained syndromes and symptoms like chronic pain, FMS, IBS and CFS. What they do — does not seem to be as important as how they do what they do… The people who do what they do with a happy heart, peaceful mind and playful spirit seem to have the best outcomes regardless of what they are doing."

And how can therapists help them to get that way? Irving Yalom, famous for his group work, said, "It's the relationship that heals. It's the relationship that heals. It's the relationship that heals. My professional rosary!"

As witch doctors and medicine men have known since the dawn of pre-history, If you construct an ideology that people accept, and if you relate well enough to your clients to get them to the point that Ellner just described, it doesn't matter much what theoretical approach you use. Regardless of whether or not the Academic community points out that there is no scientific support for your claims, you will still be regarded in some quarters as a success. In reality, however, there is no need to spend hundreds of dollars a workshop which is primarily intended to whet your appetite tp sign up for the next one in the series, in order to eventually qualify for a pricey "certificate" which has no legal standing, and no meaning to people who have not themselves embarked on a similar training quest .

Many people spend a great deal of time and money going from workshop to workshop, either to perfect their therapeutic techniques or to experience the latest trends in psychotherapy for themselves. Since most of these highly-touted and expensive procedures work at least some of the time, this creates a "partial reinforcement effect" which causes people to try even more advanced workshops, in the hope that they will eventually get it righ -- in the same way that a laboratory rat who is only rewarded occasionally will work even harder than one that is rewarded all the time. 

 It looks impressive, of course, if there is a certificate on the wall stating that you have been certified by the Great Poo-Bah or Swami Rama-Ding-a-Ling (and preferably both!). But most of us are probably not going to know who they are. Empirical research has confirmed that while psychotherapy in general is effective, the relationship between therapist and client is a more important contributor to a successful outcome than whether the degree on the wall (if there is one!) indicates that the therapist has completed a Bachelor's, Master's, or Doctoral program, or the particular field in which the degree happens to be granted, or the theoretical orientation of the therapist.

We are currently going through an information revolution which is more far-reaching in its implications than the ones which occurred when steam power replaced the horse, and electricity replaced steam. I am not arguing against continuing our professional education; but one thing ought to be clear when our nearest google prompt is a lot closer and cheapter than our nearest ATM prompt. Do not pay good money for self-styled "experts" with phony degrees! The totem poles are on fire!