License as Leverage: Mandating Treatment for Professionals

Abstract

Mandating professionals with mental disorder to adhere to psychological or psychiatric treatment in order to maintain their professional license frequently occurs and is rarely controversial. We survey current practices in using a professional license as “leverage” to assure adherence to treatment, and compare mandated treatment for professionals with other, more controversial forms of mandated treatment. Our analysis raises two questions. First, if the same level of high quality treatment now available to licensed professionals with mental or addictive disorders were made readily available to others with these disorders, would the positive outcomes experienced by the former also be experienced by the latter? Second, if the same intensive level of monitoring were applied to others as is now applied to licensed professionals, would rates of treatment adherence between the two groups tend to converge?