Joseph (who I don’t know personally) was kind enough to stop by my Child Development Partners blog and ask me this question: “Isn’t using testimonials from clients unethical?”  I have a few testimonials on my website from a few parents of my clients.

But he asks a good question.

This is my understanding from the APA Ethics code.  It is unethical to ask current clients for testimonials. This makes sense because of the potential power differential in psychotherapy, not to mention putting pressure on a current client to say nice things about you.  Not a good idea.

However, it is perfectly ok to ask clients who are done with their treatment to give you feedback on your work together. If that feedback is positive, it is also fine to ask permission to use their comments as a testimonial.

I’ve had parents of clients offer testimonials and I have asked people if I can use comments they have sent me via email or written in a note if I could use their words as a testimonial.

But I’ve been doing  some thinking on testimonials lately.  The FTC just implemented new laws that require people marketing a service or product to only showcase testimonials that demonstrate what and average result would be if someone used their product or service.  Essentially, this law exists to prevent those ads you see where they show someone who lost 100 lbs in two weeks using a weight loss product. But the law applies to ALL testimonials.

So now, to avoid any entanglements with the FTC, I don’t recommend using testimonials at all.  There is no average user of psychotherapy and no average outcome, so all we could legally demonstrate is that we are a very nice therapist, but not much else.

However, without testimonials it makes it much harder develop “social proof” that what you do helps people to feel better and get well.

One way to demonstrate that you know your stuff is to have a blog (you knew I was going to say this) where you can post useful information and people can post comments and you can maybe get a dialogue going.  This way of connecting shows you are a real person who has some expertise that you are willing to share.

Bottom line: testimonials are not unethical per se, but you can’t ask current clients for them.  To avoid all risk of being unethical or illegal or any other potential negative outcome, don’t use them. Instead connect in helpful, conversational ways.  It’s win-win for everyone.