So, Cheryl, you might well ask, what would you do to sort out this mess?
I'm so glad you asked! If I ran the world, and most days I think it is a good thing that I don't, and if I became convinced that licensing was a valid and important way to qualify professionals, I would start by folding together into one licensable category all of the professions which lay claim to psychotherapy. Because right now there is no standard for training between professions. I would convene a panel of people considered by their peers to be among the best psychotherapists in each profession and work with them to delineate what we would consider to be the needed skills and background for practicing psychotherapy. Since in this fantasy, I run the world, I might even create a multi-disciplinary training program for psychotherapists. In any case, I would create a single license category for all of those who wish to practice psychotherapy, regardless of their professional background. This would mean that psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, social workers and counselors -- any of them wishing to practice as psychotherapists would have to meet the requirements of this license. Psychoanalytic training in its many varieties does this.
But this begs the whole question of the real value of licensing and whether or not it actually affords consumer protection. I think it would be important for someone to study this issue -- see if there is any difference in actions taken against therapists who are licensed vs unlicensed. I believe the question is important because I think there is nothing in licensing which offers any protection against malpractice on the part of any licensed therapist. And since there is no uniformity of training across disciplines, it is difficult to argue that some baseline of competence is established.
Perhaps what we need is a system which provides licenses for those who wish to accept third party payments -- because insurance companies want some way to filter who is reimbursable and who is not. And also to allow those who do not wish to accept third party payments to practice as well -- it would not be unreasonable to require that they register with whatever licensing board best fits.