And The Winner Is NOBODY
Well unless you have had your head buried in the sand, you cannot help but to have noticed that it is awards season in Hollywood. I thought I would talk a little today about “award winning” therapists for my piece today. It is hard to do a search for a therapist, hypnotherapist particularly but other types as well, without coming across the description “Award Winning Therapist”. Now this I admit sounds impressive, even I have used that description for myself. However, the difference is that the awards I have picked up in my career are from the professional bodies within my field and not a “pay per award” organisation which seems to be overtaking the degree mill sellers of the 1990’s.
Awards are great, they show a level of accomplishment which falls outside of the traditional qualification structure. But, like qualifications themselves, these are not a guarantee of a practitioner’s skill or competence. This is especially true when you see awards being made to people from bodies which ask you to pay for the award itself. This is not uncommon, I have seen “Doctor of the Year”, “Man of the Year”, “International Who’s Who” and other such titles, which with a little investigation are traced back to bodies which sell these awards as their business.
These are vanity awards, which are harmless on the surface, but become a real problem in our world as they are used to imply that the holders of these awards are superior to those who don’t. I would argue as well that being given an award like “Business Woman of the Year” might be a nice designation, but it does not represent a practitioner’s ability as a therapist. So, dear reader, as usual, I will leave you with the message that before employing a therapist, you do a thorough check of the claims he or she is making, you will not regret it I assure you.
