Hybrid health professionals exist but are muzzled from teaching you what you most want to know.
Only the Evidence Base……And Nothing More?
Our frontline health professionals, the ones we go to first, are confined to publicly disseminating the evidence base and not the things we know lead to highest possibility and potential. The things that humans want the most.
An “evidence-base” is often just the trusted average, statistical norms based on controlled research data, not real life. People should know what else is possible, not just what usually happens in a controlled clinical trial (APS, 2025; AHPRA Guidelines, 2025).
What Life Coaches Know (And Are Free to Say)
Life coaches tap into this. They know that people are searching for growth and transformation and want a practitioner with beliefs in limitlessness and a dog-with-a-bone attitude to approaching a client’s goal in as many ways as they can innovate. They may not be able to promise it, based on evidence, but most clients don’t expect this when seeking high-potential coaching. They know they want beyond-normal results, not the trusted average. They just want a practitioner that is driven for the same (Whitmore, 2002; APS, 2025) (APS, 2025).
As both a practitioner and a person, I value breakthroughs and outliers, those individuals or moments that transcend the average. I went outside of my own field to find what was possible and found the wild unregulated sector, offering more than just problem-based management. I wanted to live a life beyond the normal expectations and knew I needed to work abnormally hard and see things in an abnormal way.
The Other Side of “Breakthrough”: Non-Ordinary States and Risks
I flew overseas to deep dive into ten days of teacher training in an intensive style of Breathwork; the kind that makes you trance, see things that aren’t there, and get way below the ordinary conscious mind. Non-ordinary states of consciousness achieved by modalities like this move material faster than traditional therapy models (ref: Grof, 2000).
The beauty and the beast of this fast-tracked stripping of self? I was disintegrated, cracked open, and purging fears that I didn’t even know were there. Dogs chased me down the street, smelling the terror unleashed and my first experience of muscle paralysis left me stuck in the line up at a crowded reef break without a boat coming back to get me for hours.
My intention on that trip? Get rid of any fear that was holding me back in life from going bigger. To explode the Jonah complex. To purge the crippling doubt that frustrated me. I just didn’t realise what you want released has to come back up to the point of muscle paralysis and dogs chasing you down.
If I wasn’t already a clinical psychologist, I might not have made it home. Thankfully, I knew I’d completely blown my window of tolerance and experienced what I wanted, but too fast, without a framework to understand or a teacher to help me integrate and normalise the shattering of my former self. I suspect I needed this massive crack. Before this, I was too effective at denying mess of any kind. Hence my clinical training: name it, treat it, file it, organise it and see the world as either normal or abnormal. Reduce any weird experiences as explained somehow by science and not the mystical box of the unknown.
Non-clinical interventions can be jarring, intense, and fast. I had to find someone that could explain what had happened overseas and I wasn’t going to find it in psychiatry or psychology. It would be explained as some sort of psychotic break, a condition that assumes you are confused about reality. I knew I was far from confused about life. I had just seen it in brutal clarity for ten days straight.
Ann Harrison, Breathwork trainer and academic, remains my teacher and mentor. She explained that I’d been thrown into a spiritual emergency, an intense shift in reality that rips out old beliefs and throws up unsettling questions about life’s meaning. Exactly what I’d wanted, but without the dogs chasing me and the near-drowning.
Existential Growth or Pathology? The Danger of Over-Clinicalisation
Spiritual emergence (not emergency as I experienced it), is what we want: to dredge up the injuries of life, see how they have contorted and armoured us and become what we sometimes get glimmers of seeing is possible. People travel to the Amazon and take days of plant medicine to do the same. I completely understand. I believe in it. I also believe in the wrong hands it could be lethal.
What we are really looking for is to know how to make this life one we don’t regret upon the life-review we might do on death’s door (Yalom, 1980; Frankl, 1946). We have a craving to truly understand ourselves and move beyond patterns, to master the art of being human. To do that we have to strip off all that isn’t real. Rather than find our purpose, we need to remember it.
We’ve forgotten how to ask for this. So we google “finding purpose” or “affirmations”, wondering if others feel as lost as we do and whether we have imagined any higher meaning in our lives.
We don’t talk enough about the existential crises that are part of being human anymore. We have narrowed our range of ‘normal’ to positive moods and functional behaviours and change that happens without chaos and undoing’s. Liminal space (the seasons between old knowing and new knowing where we have to tolerate knowing nothing a while), disorientation, identity confusion, and deconstructing current realities is now mainly understood under the medical banners of psychiatry and clusters of disorders like psychoses, personality disorders or traumatic stress (Horwitz, 2002; Frances, 2013).
Sometimes symptoms are a clinical reality that needs treatment. And sometimes strange symptoms are part of a stage of undoing before a conscious rebuilding of life. We need a framework that includes these as normal and transitional increasing our confidence as a society to move through them. Or we will hover over our desires for change and avoid the pull-down of old beliefs.
DSM Expansion: More Labels, Less Human Range
The growing league of mental health terms has led to increasing anxiety about a myriad of ways to be “disordered.” The DSM has expanded from roughly one hundred pages to nearly a thousand (Frances, 2013). The human condition has not changed that drastically, but our range of what is considered normal has shrunk so much that nearly any stage that involves symptoms can be narrowed into a disorder. Even grief, the most universal human experience, is now too often met with a pathological label (Horwitz, 2002) (Frances, 2013).
So we analyze the topography of our lives hoping we will figure out the name of our particular predicament and pathology.
Let us not forget the political nature of diagnoses (beyond the scope of this article), but for reminders sake; homosexuality was considered a mental illness by our ‘experts’ until 1973. Not long enough ago to convince me of the gold standard of our diagnostic system that we reify. Just because it is said, does not mean it is true. The sun was once thought to revolve around the earth and questioning this was viewed as heresy (Finocchiaro, 1989; Sheehan, 2020). Psychological ‘science’ can be just as erroneous and influenced by political climates as any other dogma.
Growth and Crisis: When Emergence Becomes Emergency
The subterranean gold of true meaning must be mined, not diagnosed. Diagnosis is for clinical remediation. To shortcut a clinician’s decision tree in treatment choice to save the patient time and suffering when the patient needs clinical care (DSM-5, 2013).
Most people I have seen in twenty years believe they need clinical care and have a disorder until they understand the concepts of liminal space, deconstruction, mess, undoing, and temporary disorientation as normal in developing upwards; a mid-space between the death of an old life and the birth of a new one (Bridges, 2004).
The reality for all of us is that the lines between clinical and non-clinical blur constantly. Life coaches in the unregulated sector understand that emotions dislodge and shed through tears, shaking, non-ordinary phenomena that feel terrifying and clarifying all at once. They live to push you to the edge you want to find.
Clinicians are seekers too
Many of the best psychologists I know are also keen explorers of the upper limits of life and their own life meaning. In their private lives they seek these same answers; how far can we push our limits? How much conditioning can we shed to live an intentional life? How do we find the truth of our existence?
A lot of us believe in full transformation, healing and transcendence and the need for spiritual meaning. Not confined to religiosity, but the type of meaning that makes suffering ease and loosens the noose on the rope when we are in a dark passage of the soul. We have even measured it, of course, the conscientious people that we are. And it true; spirituality, defined as making meaning in life, reduces suicide in at risk populations by an extraordinary amount (Kleiman & Beaver, 2013; Lawrence et al., 2016; Bonelli & Koenig, 2013).
Why? My belief is that making meaning in life is essential to rumbling with it. It’s higher beliefs and examination of life’s purpose that helps us understand ourselves and what stage we are in when we are struggling. As a human, in a normal growth portal of pain, not purely a symptom cluster.
So life coach or psychologist? A case for all
I don’t think that there should be gatekeeping by one profession over another. I think there are many benefits to regulated professionals and non-regulated sectors and the combining of both would be a benefit to both fields.
Regulated professionals have accredited training in diagnosis, risk assessment, crisis management, giving them the capacity to recognize and manage emergent mental health issues (e.g. suicidality and psychosis). Unregulated professionals, less bound by bureaucracy can use new modalities, creative approaches, and tailor support for personal growth, motivation, and higher goals well beyond basic functioning.
The Need for Hybrid Professionals
What is needed is hybrid professionals that can push for highest goals and catch when something slips into a troubled transitional space. Both worlds, means safe hands. This is the argument for psychologists to be a larger part of this growth sector of non-clinical personal development. The Australian Psychological Society (APS) cited that up to 50% of people signing up for life coaching programs have significant psychological support needs (APS, 2025).
Regulation Keeps Skills Hidden
But hybrid professionals are hidden in Australia
We exist; ten-year university-trained change specialists that have studied and sought to know the truth of the whole spectrum of human functioning, from disorder to super functioning, but despite this expertise, we are regulated out of showing ourselves to you.
Highly accredited health professionals are bound by regulator’s advertising laws, which warns against language like transformation, transcendence, or personal breakthroughs (AHPRA, 2025; Psychology Board, 2025).
We are pigeon-holed perception-wise by our expertise in clinical realities and denied to advertise any additional training we hold in alternate fields. As a result, the public doesn’t often realize they can access a highly trained psychologist for upper limit coaching and transformative growth work.
For General Practitioners it’s the same: Hidden Talents Kept Under Wraps
Hybrid medical professionals also exist, holding medical degrees and years of additional training in integrative or complementary therapies. Yet our regulatory system limits how openly and broadly they can market and practice these skills.
Look at Dr Suzi Wigge, a General Practitioner in Sydney that is a fully qualified GP, has extensive formal training in Traditional Chinese Medicine, qualifications in nutrition, remedial massage, reiki, aromatherapy, and advanced clinical hypnosis. Whenever I tell someone about her, they pull out their phone with speed, excitedly finding a whole team of similar integrated doctors in the same practice.
Her clinic is a great example of the care we can have in our country. Doctors that have driven themselves to master a bandwidth of care that goes beyond the man-made divisions between disciplines, offering a huge array of diverse knowledge, increasing the confidence of their patients to access mainstream and alternative practices they can trust.
Why Best Practice is Blocked in our Country:
Australia’s regulatory stance is one of the most risk-averse globally. It heavily restricts public messaging by professionals, out of concern that “non-clinical” or blended approaches will be “confusing” or misleading, overstep evidence requirements, or dilute public safety standards. In fact it can penalise or sanction practitioners who market their full breadth of expertise outside the strict illness-based model, meaning those who do offer both therapy and coaching must keep their non-clinical services largely invisible.
Arguably, this blocks, rather than supports, best practice. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses show that integrated care models lead to significant improvements in symptom reduction, treatment adherence, patient satisfaction, and overall quality of life compared to traditional care for both physical and mental health conditions (WHO, 2022; Naylor et al., 2012).
The public is underestimated
The restriction of our most skilled professionals, those that have added years of training beyond a baseline medical or clinical psychology degree, rigorously vetted by six or more years of university education, ethics training, and data literacy is absurd.
The regulatory system assumes the public would be confused by professionals that offer cross disciplinary care. Rather than expecting intelligent informed consent between practitioner and client, regulators routinely underestimate the public, controlling what you’re allowed to access and even what you’re allowed to know exists as an option.
This leads people to exposure to the kind of risk I faced; traveling to places and people that don’t hold the grounding to spot when things go wrong.
Australians not be trusted to make informed choices about their own care?
This is also an unfounded lack of trust. Most clinicians can easily explain:
“While this additional intervention may have limited clinical trial data, in my twenty years of practice and further study, I have found it to really work.”
Not a difficult explanation to understand.
The reality is today’s public is more informed and educated than at any point in history. Australians know the difference between wishful thinking and grounded expertise. They are perfectly capable of choosing whether they want strictly conventional care or a practitioner seeking broader wisdom, without needing every approach to be rubber-stamped as “evidence based.”
The evidence base is one foundation of trust, but so is twenty years of clinical experience and observation. The “evidence-base” merely reflects the studies completed to date, and not the wealth of powerful options not yet subject to randomised controlled trials but witnessed repetitively as effective by a clinician trained in discernment.
Lessons from Overseas: Australia Lags Behind
This stands in stark contrast to the trust-based, transparency-driven approaches in the US and UK, racing ahead with hybrid-practitioner models of care. These professionals are visible, institutionally supported and empowered to build transparent brands around their full skillset. They aren’t hiding, in fact these countries promote their innovation and higher skill set.
In the US and UK, you’ll easily find:
- GPs who are also certified nutritionists or trained in functional medicine, able to legally advertise and seamlessly blend medical diagnosis with lifestyle prescriptions and mind-body interventions.
- Psychologists who openly describe themselves as “holistic,” “integrative,” or “therapist-coach.” They are free to combine therapy, coaching, mindfulness, and personal development work, without fear of regulatory sanction if they remain ethical and transparent.
The Holistic Psychologist: A Case in Point
Consider Dr. Nicole LePera (“The Holistic Psychologist”), who openly shares her hybrid credentials and model with millions of followers across the US and internationally, offering a blend of evidence-based psychology, self-development, and somatic practices without hiding or splitting her professional identity.
In the US, psychologists like LePera are free to develop personal methodologies, teach and coach, and speak publicly on deep change well beyond diagnostic categories, meeting massive public appetite for more empowered, whole-person care.
LePera’s popularity is global. Recent social analytics show she has over 7 million Instagram followers, with tens of thousands from Australia engaging with her work. Her audience here dwarfs that of most registered psychologists, a reflection of Australians’ hunger for exactly this kind of holistic and accessible expertise.
Conclusion: Unlocking the Subterranean Gold
Instead of trusting Australians to discern and decide, our regulations keep choice locked away, underestimating the public’s intelligence and right to navigate their own care. We suffer from a burdensome regulation system in healthcare, shrinking your options, driving our brightest practitioners to retreat, and leaving the sub-terranean gold of real expertise buried and out of sight. It muzzles the experts who could guide you to breakthroughs, forcing them to hide the best skills, deepest wisdom, and innovative approaches they know work and that you really want to pick their brains over.
If only we could speak. And if only you could be trusted to understand the difference between ‘evidence’ and clinical experience which develops hunches and instincts based on years of watching humans – like the canaries in the coal mine – with an uncanny ability to spot things before the evidence base catches up.
References / Further Reading
- APS. (2025). Media releases and policy submissions. https://psychology.org.au/about-us/news-and-media
- AHPRA. (2025). Advertising guidelines and social media. https://www.ahpra.gov.au/Resources/Advertising-hub/Advertising-guidelines-and-other-guidance/Advertising-guidelines.aspx
- Frances, A. (2013). Saving Normal.
- Horwitz, A.V. (2002). Creating Mental Illness.
- DSM-5. (2013). American Psychiatric Association.
- Yalom, I. D. (1980). Existential Psychotherapy.
- Bridges, W. (2004). Transitions: Making sense of life’s changes.
- Whitmore, J. (2002). Coaching for Performance.
- Grof, S. & Grof, C. (1989). Spiritual Emergency.
- Siegel, D. (2020). The Developing Mind.
- Naylor, C., et al. (2012). Integrating Care: Pathways and Policy.
- World Health Organization (2022). Integrative health and well-being.
- LePera, N. (2021). @the.holistic.psychologist
- UK Health & Care Professions Council (2024). Integrated and holistic practice guidelines.
- Kleiman, E. M., & Beaver, J. K. (2013). Meaning in life mediates the relationship between religiosity and suicide risk: A prospective study. Journal of Affective Disorders, 150(3), 723–729. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2013.03.049
- Lawrence, R. E., Oquendo, M. A., & Stanley, B. (2016). Religion and suicide risk: A systematic review. Archives of Suicide Research, 20(1), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/13811118.2015.1004494
- Bonelli, R. M., & Koenig, H. G. (2013). Mental disorders, religion and spirituality 1990 to 2010: A systematic evidence-based review. Journal of Religion and Health, 52, 657–673. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-013-9691-4