Bill aims to prevent unlicensed life coaches from practicing mental health therapy
Utah lawmakers are considering a bill to strengthen 'guardrails' around the scope of who can practice certain mental health therapies and crack down on instances of so-called life coaches engaging in conversion therapy.
SB48, sponsored by Spanish Fork Sen. Mike McKell, R-Spanish Fork, expands the definition of mental health therapy and creates an enforcement fund to educate and train professionally licensed therapists, and investigate unprofessional and unlawful conduct.
The bill comes amid concerns that unlicensed life coaches are offering services similar to professional therapy. Unlike mental health professionals — who are licensed through the state's Division of Professional Licensing — anyone can call themselves a life coach with no qualifications.
McKell's bill adds "conveying an opinion as to the validity of an individual's established diagnosis" to the definition of mental health therapy.
"We want mental health professionals to do that, and we only want mental professionals to do that," he told the Senate Health and Human Services Committee Monday, adding that the bill would help "root out those that are practicing mental health without a license."
The bill passed unanimously out of the committee Monday, but McKell said he is working on changes to address conversion therapy, a widely discredited practice intended to change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity. Utah banned mental health therapists from practicing conversion therapy on children in 2023, but McKell said he recently learned that some life coaches are offering conversion therapy as a work-around to the ban.
"I think that should concern everybody in this room," he said. "It's banned in our state — we're not going to change that, but as we draw guardrails and try to protect our mental health industry against some of the weird stuff that we see with life coaching, that may come forward at another date."
Jessica Black, the legislative chairwoman of the Utah Mental Health Counselors Association, spoke in support of the bill and the proposed amendments to address conversion therapy. She said some life coaches may be working with licensed therapists — with the coach overseeing the conversion therapy with the child while the licensed professional only sees the parent.
"That's kind of how they're getting around this," Black said. "People are putting themselves out as licensed professionals, but if they harm someone, those people have no recourse."
Black said some life coaches advertise themselves as if they are licensed therapists, saying their practice is "deeply informed by my clinical experience and expertise" even while noting that their services are "not therapy, per se."
Sarah Stroup, with the Utah Association of Marriage and Family Therapy, spoke in support of the bill, saying it is also intended to "prevent bad actors in the mental health field from pivoting to life coach when they have faced disciplinary action."
SB48 now advances to the Senate floor.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
ESPN anchor Jay Harris reveals he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer
ESPN anchor Jay Harris announced on Good Morning America that he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer and will be undergoing surgery on June 10, which will sideline him from SportsCenter for about a month. Harris, who joined ESPN in 2003, shared that his doctor is optimistic because his last scan showed the condition has not spread. Harris said he is sharing his story to encourage men, especially Black men, to discuss important health matters that affect their demographic. "We all need to talk about these things because we all have them in our families," Harris said of on Good Morning America. "By not talking about them, we just, really, I hate to be morbid, but we sentence ourselves to death by not talking." JUST IN: ESPN @SportsCenter anchor @JayHarrisESPN shares prostate cancer diagnosis: 'I'm having surgery on Tuesday. I'll be away from SportsCenter for about a month to recover. Then I'm coming back better than ever.' — Good Morning America (@GMA) June 5, 2025 Harris said his father had prostate cancer, and other family members on his side have also been diagnosed with it. He emphasized that he now shares more information with his son, who is in his twenties, to ensure he is aware of this family history. 2025 NBA Finals MVP odds: Can Thunder's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander pull off rare double? According to the Mayo Clinic, prostate cancer is a growth of cells that starts in the part of the male reproductive system, the prostate, that is found below the bladder. Prostate cancer is one of the most common types of cancer, and when detected early, many individuals with this disease can be successfully treated. According to the Mayo Clinic, screening for prostate cancer can be done using a blood test called the Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) test, which can identify traces of cancer before any symptoms appear. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Jay Harris, ESPN anchor, reveals prostate cancer diagnosis on GMA
4 hours ago
'SportsCenter' host Jay Harris makes announcement
ESPN "SportsCenter" anchor Jay Harris shares a personal update that he hopes will inspire men, especially Black men, to take a closer look at their health. June 5, 2025
Vox
4 hours ago
- Vox
The 'summer body' is over. Something worse is taking its place.
is a culture writer interested in reality TV, movies, pop music, Black media, and celebrity culture. Previously, she wrote for the Daily Beast and contributed to several publications, including Vulture, W Magazine, and Bitch Media. For decades, women have heard about the mythical 'summer body' — toned arms, ripped abs, no cellulite. Some people also call this narrow goal 'bathing suit ready,' or talk about having a 'beach body.' In the months leading up to the highly anticipated season, the pressure to fit this arbitrary mold, whether through gym advertisements and or the latest diet fad, felt enormous. Getting in shape was a prerequisite to enjoying warm weather or going on vacation — or else risk being body-shamed. The 2010s saw brands and the media challenge this expectation, from body-positive ad campaigns to Sports Illustrated's swimwear issue. More recently, though, it feels like that messaging has gotten lost in our current fitness and wellness boom, aided by the introduction of GLP-1 drugs that encourage weight loss, like Ozempic and WeGovy. Nowadays, being fit isn't relegated to a few months of the year. From viral challenges like 75 Hard to workout methods like '4-2-1,' social media is cluttered with routines and time-efficient hacks to lose weight throughout the year, with a new trend going viral seemingly every month. Even during the cold months, we're encouraged to do some productive version of hibernating, preparing our bodies to be seen in the warmer seasons. Plus, since the pandemic, fitness has just become a larger part of social life. From running clubs to Pilates classes, health and wellness have become opportunities to make connections and hang out with friends. Social media is evermore flooded with wellness content, including the Make America Healthy Again movement, which isn't only focused on weight loss but has certainly changed discussions about health. That's not to mention weight-loss hacks disguised in wellness language, such as 'gut cleanses' and 'detoxes.' Either way, the message around bodies right now is clear: We should be fine-tuning our appearance at all times. Overall, it seems like 'summer' or 'beach bodies' have just become year-round bodies, with no endpoint in sight. For many, the deluge of workout routines has sparked fatigue. Has the pressure to get in shape for the summer decreased, or have we just replaced it with something more toxic? We're told to be constantly working on our bodies For a long time, losing weight has felt cyclical, with many Americans exercising and dieting on the same schedule. Spring is known to be a peak time for gym attendance, while the summer months tend to be slower. We're similarly lax about working out or even caring what our bodies look like during the winter months when people are staying indoors or traveling for the holidays. In January, we flock to the gym again, with many making fitness goals a New Year's resolution. Nowadays, experts and gym-goers say this rhythm has changed. The gym is always packed. Pilates classes are fully booked. TikTok is constantly introducing a new way to get in shape, whether at home or at the gym. Even hanging out with friends or meeting new people nowadays often involves breaking a sweat. 'The gym is definitely always crowded,' says Bobby McMullen, trainer and founder of the fitness app Adonis. 'Peak times don't just go down when the weather starts to get warm. People are definitely integrating fitness into their daily social lives.' McMullen says we have become more 'hyper-aware of the year-long importance of gym' following the Covid-19 pandemic when people across the globe were reported to be exercising more. 'We were working out year-round for two years, essentially,' McMullen says. Researchers have found that these increased fitness habits are largely driven by Gen Z, a cohort formatively shaped by the pandemic. A 2023 study for McKinsey & Company found that 56% of Gen Z consumers say that fitness is a 'very high priority' for them, compared to 40% of US consumers overall. Possible causes include Gen Z's increased exposure at an early age to fitness trends and other health-related content on social media. Additionally, Krug says that the rise of GLP-1s, like Ozempic and Mounjaro, for weight loss have only added to this endless pursuit of thinness. The accessibility of these drugs has been a miracle for some, giving people with prediabetes or a certain BMI an easier route to weight loss. But for people who can't afford these medications or have poor reactions to them, their popularity only adds to a feeling of exclusion. According to Krug, these drugs have 'raised expectations and lowered the threshold for what people think they should be able to achieve with their bodies.' 'If weight loss is now one injection away, what's the excuse for not being thin?' she says. Summer is still a bad time for body image Still, these year-round efforts to get thinner haven't exactly made approaching the hottest season any easier. Krug has found that summer is still a peak time for body-image issues. In the 2021 study titled, 'Beach Body Ready? Shredding for Summer? A First Look at 'Seasonal Body Image,'' Krug and other researchers reported that body dissatisfaction increases significantly in the months before the summer, specifically for young women. 'We found that participants consistently reported lower satisfaction with their appearance, a stronger drive for thinness, and increased engagement in appearance-related social comparisons during this seasonal period,' Krug told Vox. While year-round pressures might have changed, the particular stressors of June, July, and August have not. 'Summer means more visible bodies, and that visibility often brings with it a sense of judgment,' says Krug. 'People anticipate being evaluated against narrow beauty ideals that center on being toned, tanned, and effortlessly attractive.' Aside from wearing less clothing, people also anticipate being in more social settings, particularly big events where they plan to be photographed. For instance, Beyoncé fans have posted videos on TikTok of themselves working out in order to fit into their themed outfits for her Cowboy Carter Tour. The summer is also a peak time for weddings, hence fitness plans like 'shredding for the wedding.' Kelsey Ellis, a body-positive fitness trainer, says the fashion industry has historically played a role in ingraining these seasonal insecurities by 'using thin models in swimwear ads and gifting products to straight-sized influencers.' The 2010s offered some respite from these toxic narratives. The body positivity movement made some strides in challenging this expectation. The phrase 'every body is a beach body' became a popular retort, while an increasing number of clothing lines make swimwear, including bikinis, for plus-size bodies. Ellis says that, even as more brands have backed off from the summer-body narrative,' it's become harder to avoid individuals on TikTok promoting the same message. Related Obesity in the age of Ozempic 'The pressure hasn't disappeared,' Ellis says. 'It's just become more subtle and user-generated. Most of the harmful messaging I see is coming from influencers, fitness creators, and regular people online, especially with the rise of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs and hashtags like #skinnytok.' It's strange to look back on the body-negative messaging of the past with any sort of fondness. At the very least, though, the notion of the 'summer body' had a concrete goal with a clear endpoint, allowing ourselves a chance to rest. Now, our bodies have become never-ending projects with no marker of completion. It's far from the ideal version of an endless summer.
