Therapist Registration

Before you may register, you must agree to the following statement. You may choose “Opt out” if you do not agree. Please be advised that our vetting team reviews each application and investigates each applicant thoroughly.

Statement of agreement:

First, you agree that you are currently appropriately licensed in your state, country, or province for your profession, be that psychology, counseling, clinical work, psychiatry, or another area of mental health. We will accept people who have recently graduated and are providing services while still under supervision. We do not accept life coaches, spiritual healers, or other people who do not have appropriate education and licensure.

Second, you agree to use current best practices with clients. This means using evidence-based therapeutic practices with proven efficacy. This precludes use of spiritual or supernatural techniques such as prayer, past life regression, New Age modalities, anything that calls upon supernatural elements, pseudoscientific therapies, or any other therapeutic method not based on scientific research and best practices.

While many people use the term "evidence-based practice" (EBP), we are specifically looking for therapies that have a solid grounding in scientific research that control for both placebo effects and regression to the mean. This means therapies that have had multiple clinical trials published in legitimate, peer-reviewed journals. Such trials will optimally be randomized, placebo controlled, double blinded trials, which are the gold standard for treatment outcome studies. Therapies which have lower levels of evidence (single blinded, waitlist controlled, small N designs, and so on) must have a sufficient amount of studies. Anecdotes and the number of people who use a particular therapy do not matter, and if your chosen therapy is controversial within the scientific community we may not accept your application.

Part of your application includes theoretical orientation. When you tell us which EBP(s) you use, please describe how you use them in therapy. We want to see the “how” of your therapy more than the “what” or “why.” For example, if you say that you use cognitive-behavioral therapy, please list which of the numerous techniques you use and what type of population you use them with rather than just typing in "CBT."

Third, you agree that you yourself are secular and non-theistic. While being a religious person certainly in no way means that one cannot provide quality, ethical therapy, the clients who use the Secular Therapy Project to connect with therapists are looking for people who are similar to them.

Please be prepared to provide details that underscore your beliefs. Examples could include being active in a group that espouses secular values and activism, published work (in print or online) that demonstrates a commitment to secular values, a social media presence that shows secular values, or providing a brief essay on your beliefs and values and how you arrived at them.

To this end, on our application form we encourage you to provide us with any available information demonstrating you are non-theistic and have a secular worldview. Lack of information of this kind will not automatically exclude you from joining the STP, but will result in additional inquiries.

We understand that the client/therapist relationship works best on a foundation of shared trust. Please only proceed if you can wholeheartedly agree with this statement in its entirety.