How about a specific badge like “Health On The Net”? If “Therapist A” meets some number standards, s/he are certified to do therapy XYZ, i.e. therapy online. The badges are often sold as site licenses renewable for annually, etc.

Yes, you can have people to have home-made badges… But if you bring forth collaborative and diverse groups, then you set minimum standards/evaluations/progress reports that justify the badge usages. You would have a standing committee overseeing proper use through annual audits. And as I understand it if you make these badges a “renewable widget” it can be removed from time to time. Similar to BBBonline/TrustE/Verasign sites.

I want to develop one because the participants on my site are African American women who already are a health disparity and refuse to seek professionally licensed treatment, online or real-time–anywhere. And as they get sicker, they wonder why they are suffering. I can use coaching strategies that promote positive choices uplift their pre-contemplative state to just think about talking to someone. But, I do NOT want them to encounter my past experiences with bigoted therapists who cannot treat me when some of my mental health issues are about racial incidences, like Dr. Henry Louis Gates. If I had a verifiable badge handy, I could direct my participants to “safe-free-zone” therapists who are cultural competent, sensitive, licensed, trained to understand mental health conditions in diverse communities.

I am very serious about setting up something like this within the next 3 months with the clinician I know personally. But I want to see what a therapists take on it would be?

Sincerely,

Dr. G-

I agree with you that advertising oneself on rating sites is a slippery slope. I believe that it can create the appearance of soliciting testimonials. I wrestled with this issue long and hard and had the experience of other therapists sharing that they were shocked to discover clients themselves had posted their practices on Yelp, along with testimonials. Some clients thought they were doing a good deed for their therapist. One dilemma created by this is that even if Yelp (or the client) deletes the review, once you are listed on Yelp, you cannot get Yelp to remove you. I don’t know about other sites, but Yelp, in particular, combs Google and will put your practice on their site, even if you don’t list it yourself. They will not delete you, as they say it is all publicly available information.

I had initially decided that if someone ever posted a review, I might follow-up with a generic post about my preferences and concerns aobut client privacy. But I eventually decided that I’d rather be preemptive, since responding after a testimonial was posted could be perceived as a reaction to a particular testimonial. I took ownership of my own Yelp page for the sole purpose of being explicit about my preference for clients not to post reviews of my practice. I also wanted to make it clear that if clients decided to review my practice anyway, that I’d hope they would take measures to protect their privacy.

I also posted a blog post on my site discussing my concerns.

I agree with you that this is a serious issue!