Anyone Can Call Themselves a Coach — And That's a Problem

A licensed therapist speaks plainly about what's really going on in the wellness industry

Let me be straight with you — because nobody else seems to want to b. The line between a licensed therapist and a life coach has gotten so blurry that people are getting hurt. And I'm done staying quiet about it.

Somewhere along the way, "coach" became a magic word. Slap it on a website, record a few Instagram videos, charge $300 a session, and suddenly you're in the mental health space. No degree. No hours logged. No board watching over you. Just a title and a payment link. And the people who are hurting — who are showing up vulnerable and desperate for real help — sometimes have no idea what they're actually walking into

This isn't about judging coaches across the board. Some of them do wonderful work in the right lanes. But the wellness industry has a serious honesty problem, and it's time we talked about it like Adults.

Let's Talk About What It Actually Takes

To become a licensed therapist, I didn't just wake up one day and decide I was good at listening. I earned a graduate degree — a master's — in a mental health field. That's two to five years of rigorous academic training before I ever sat alone with a client. Then came thousands of supervised clinical hours, meaning an experienced, licensed professional watched my work (shout out to Dr. Bob), challenged my thinking, and signed off on my growth before I could practice independently. After all of that, I sat for a licensing exam that tested my clinical knowledge, ethics, and legal understanding. Then — and only then — did a state licensing board say yes, this person is qualified.

And that board? It doesn't disappear after I get licensed. It's watching. Every cycle, I complete continuing education every year including ethics and laws to stay current. If I harm a client, violate ethics, or practice outside my scope — that board can suspend or revoke my license. I can lose everything. That accountability isn't a burden. It's the point. It's what makes the work trustworthy.

Now contrast that with what it takes to become a life coach. There is no "it takes." That's the whole problem. There is no federal or state regulation of the coaching profession. There is no licensing board. There is no required degree. There is no minimum training hours standard. Anyone — and I mean anyone — can charge money tomorrow and call themselves a life coach, a mindset coach, a trauma-informed coach, a spiritual healing coach, or whatever combination of wellness buzzwords sounds most compelling. There is nothing stopping them. Nothing. "Trauma-informed" is not a certification. It's not a license. It's often just a phrase someone added to their bio after a weekend workshop.

Then Dr. Cheyenne Bryant………..

Recently, Dr. Cheyenne Bryant — who holds herself out as a licensed therapist — went on a podcast and said something that genuinely made me stop in my tracks. She stated, in effect, that you only need to be licensed if you plan to take health insurance. I need you to sit with that for a second. That is not true. That is not even close to true. And it's not a minor slip-up — it's the kind of misinformation that gives unqualified people permission to believe they can practice therapy without credentials as long as they keep insurance out of it. It plants a seed that "licensure is a billing technicality" rather than what it actually is— a legal and ethical requirement to practice mental health treatment. Licensure exists to protect you, the client. It exists because therapy isn't just talking. It is clinical intervention. It involves diagnosing mental health conditions, treating trauma, navigating suicidal ideation, and holding space for the most broken parts of a human being. That requires training. That requires supervision. That requires someone with authority to step in when a practitioner causes harm. Whether or not that practitioner accepts your Blue Cross card is completely beside the point. When someone with credentials — someone the public trusts — spreads that kind of misinformation, the damage goes wide. It doesn't just confuse one person. It gets shared, clipped, quoted, and built into someone's business model. And the people who suffer are the clients who deserved better.

Jody Hildebrandt and the Coach Loophole

If you want to see where this all leads, look at what happened with Jody Hildebrandt. She was a licensed therapist. Then her license got suspended. And instead of stepping back from the mental health space to do the work of getting it reinstated, she pivoted — put up a "life coach" shingle and kept right on going. The people coming to her had no idea. Why would they? She still sounded credible. She still used therapeutic language. She still positioned herself as someone qualified to help with deep, painful human struggles.

The coaching industry made that possible. The lack of regulation made that possible. The public's confusion about what these titles actually mean made that possible. This isn't a one-off story. It's a pattern. And it should scare all of us. When a license gets suspended, it means a regulatory board determined that practitioner caused — or risked causing — serious harm. "Switching to coaching" doesn't erase that. It just removes the accountability.

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So What Do You Actually Do With This?

Here's the part I want you to hear most. I'm not writing this to scare you away from getting help. Please get help. The world needs more people willing to do the inner work. But you deserve to know who you're sitting across from. Before you work with anyone in a healing capacity, ask them directly: Are you licensed? In what state? What license do you hold? You can verify it. Have they had any disciplinary issues? Every state has an online license lookup. If they're a licensed professional counselor, a licensed clinical social worker, a licensed marriage and family therapist — you can look that up in five minutes and confirm they are who they say they are. Here is the link to the state of Florida board.

If they call themselves a coach, ask what their training is. A coach who completed a rigorous, accredited program and works clearly within their lane — helping with goal-setting, accountability, personal development — can be genuinely valuable. But if they're using therapy language, working with trauma, diagnosing your patterns, or doing anything that sounds clinical? You have every right to ask hard questions. Your healing is not the place for someone to figure out their boundaries. And if you ever encounter a licensed professional spreading misinformation about what licensure means — say something. Submit feedback. File a complaint with their licensing board if it rises to that level. We protect this profession by holding each other accountable, not by staying politely silent.

The mental health field is full of brilliant, dedicated, ethical people— both licensed clinicians and coaches who operate with integrity. But brilliance and good intentions are not a substitute for training, oversight, and accountability. You are worth the real thing. Your pain deserves someone who had to prove they could hold it before they were ever allowed in the room.

Don't settle for a title. Know what it means.

— Written by a Licensed Therapist who gives a damn about this profession and the people it serves. Jennifer Vincent, LMHC, QS

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