Celebrity prof agrees to improve practice
TORON TO • Celebrity psychology professor Jordan Peterson was the subject of a professional misconduct complaint for his work as a clinical psychologist, resulting in a written promise that he respects his patients’ boundaries and will address how he communicates with them.
The author of the bestselling 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos has entered into an agreement with the College of Psychologists of Ontario to “prioritize clinical work with clients above other competing interests, including appropriate client communications.”
A decision describing this agreement was released last month, and is to be in effect at least into May.
There are no details of who made the allegation of professional misconduct, nor what it involves, other than that it led to concerns about the quality of his service, doctor/patient boundaries, and the way he communicates with patients.
Complaints to professional regulatory bodies such as the College of Psychologists of Ontario are received confidentially, and do not become public unless the College decides to take the matter to a discipline hearing. That has not happened in this case, and the undertaking appears to be an alternative resolution.
In it, Peterson agrees to provide a “self-report” to the College about how he has developed and implemented this plan.
Peterson has no previous discipline findings, and no restrictions on his practice, through which he is authorized to provide clinical psychological services to adults in Ontario. He has put his practice on hold in recent months as he rose to global stardom as a popularizer of psychology, a skeptic on transgender pronouns, and an intellectual darling of the alt-right.
But he has described in several interviews how in the past he has helped patients in elite, high- stress jobs — such as senior partners in law firms — improve their attitudes, outlooks, emotional state, and job success.
Peterson was not immediately available for comment, but told reporter Jack O. Denton of The Varsity student newspaper at the University of Toronto, where Peterson teaches, that he stopped his clinical practice “long before this undertaking was formulated, as the constant demands on my time made it impossible for me to continue properly.”