Individuals that try to sell spiritual health should always be considered as scam artists. There are no education or training requirements, no set standards of the practice, and no laws for consumer protection. The scam is that consumers will be subjected to an unhealthy dose of cold reading.
Cold reading is a series of techniques used by mentalists, psychics, fortune-tellers, mediums and illusionists to determine or express details about another person, often in order to convince them that the reader knows much more about a subject than they actually do.[1] Without prior knowledge of a person, a practiced cold reader can still quickly obtain a great deal of information about the subject by analyzing the person's body language, age, clothing or fashion, hairstyle, gender, sexual orientation, religion, race or ethnicity, level of education, manner of speech, place of origin, etc. Cold readers commonly employ high probability guesses about the subject, quickly picking up on signals from their subjects as to whether their guesses are in the right direction or not, and then emphasizing and reinforcing any chance connections the subjects acknowledge while quickly moving on from missed guesses.
Spiritual health is more appropriate for party entertainment.
There are three individuals under this listing. All three are attempting to sell a scam and one is violating the laws regarding the profession of LCSW, Licensed Clinical Social Worker.
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Creating Healthy Lives
Valerie McCarthy, LCSW
Valerie McCarthy's credentials after her name, LCSW, stand for Licensed Clinical Social Worker, and she is licensed with the State of Colorado as such, CSW.00992230.
The listing for this business offers three things for which consumers should have a healthy dose of skepticism; archetypes, astrology, and accutonics.
Archetype theory usually refers to literary works, but in this case refers to an unscientific concept, claimed to have some use in counseling, that we all have archetypes or aspects of our personalities, that need to be worked on, with the help of a paid coach, of course. As the practice is theoretical, any results or references would only be theoretical as well. There are no facts to back up this theory, however, if that is not enough to induce skepticism there is this: archetypal theory is not an accredited course taught through accredited schools, rather it is coached in a brief seminar. There are a number of companies that sell archetypal theory seminars, interestingly, there appears to be no accepted number of archetypes: some companies say there are four, some eight, others twelve. Some even advertise that archetypal therapy is an ideal follow-up to an astrological reading.
Astrology theory is another unscientific concept. Astrology uses the locations of the planets, moon, sun, and stars, to discern some influence on human beings, along with a big dose of cold reading.
Acutonics® is a registered trademark, usually presented with a capitalized A, and is correctly spelled with one c instead of the two c's in the directory listing. The theory is solely based on applying Acutonic® tuning forks to certain points on the body.
These three theories, archetypes, astrology, and Acutonics®, are not only at odds with the offering of counseling, they are also at odds with Colorado law that governs Licensed Clinical Social Workers, Colorado Revised Statutes, Title 12, Professions and Occupations, Article 43, Mental Health.
12-43-222. Prohibited activities-related provisions
(1) A person licensed, registered, or certified under this article violates this article if the person:
(t) Has engaged in any of the following activities and practices:
(III) Ordering or performing any service or treatment that is contrary to the generally accepted
standards of the person's practice and without clinical justification.
Colorado laws regarding Licensed Clinical Social Workers are intended to ensure reasonable skill and safety to consumers. In this instance, consumers are not ensured of reasonable safety and skill, as they are misled by letters after a name that would indicate a qualified practitioner. Consumers trust the practitioner will use proven, safe, effective, and accepted standards of health care, but instead, their mental health concerns are treated with theories, fortunetelling, and tuning forks, by a practitioner that is either ignorant of the law or flagrantly operating outside of the law.
Practitioners that operate in violation of the law are not a good choice for coaching, counseling, or mental health care.
However, consumers that might consider this type of coaching or counseling can ensure their own safety.
Colorado Revised Statutes provide for mandatory disclosure of information to patients from every licensee, registrant, or certificate holder, including:
Name, business address, business phone number
Explanation of levels of regulation
Listing of education, degrees, credentials, certification, training
Contact information of the regulating board
Information about methods and techniques used
This is the most important one
Notice that the client may seek an outside opinion
This is another area where the law is not always followed by practitioners, but consumers can ask for the disclosure information, which they can discuss with another therapist, family doctor, or other trusted source to make an informed decision about their mental health care.
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Sacred Sister Healing Arts
Shelli Niedens
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Zoe Ann Finnoff
Insights Unlimited
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