Are independent therapist reviews prohibited by professional regulations?

No. Professional regulations concerning testimonials generally restrict therapists from soliciting, controlling, or using reviews as their own advertising. They do not create a general prohibition on independent third-party review websites. Review My Therapy is independently operated and does not represent reviews as testimonials solicited or endorsed by the therapist.

CRPO (Ontario). The College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario requires that registrants "do not request or solicit testimonials or use them in their advertising" (Standard 6.2: Advertising). We sometimes hear this cited as a reason a review should not exist here, but the rule governs the therapist, not independent sites. CRPO defines a review as "a type of testimonial, generally collected and posted by third-party internet sites (that is, sites not under the control of the registrant or their business, employer, or clinic)," and its guidance is explicit: "This rule does not prevent clients or others from reviewing or endorsing registrants (e.g., on third-party internet sites for rating professionals), provided registrants do not request them to do so and provided registrants do not influence which reviews or endorsements are published."

CPSA (Alberta). The College of Physicians & Surgeons of Alberta draws the same distinction in its advice on the Advertising standard: "Third party websites where physicians have no control over the content (e.g., physician rating websites, Google reviews, etc.) are not considered third party advertising." It adds that "publication by an independent party of all feedback (good and bad) collected in a transparent and fair manner may be acceptable."

Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. In 2020 the Commissioner investigated RateMDs, a third-party health-professional review platform, after a complaint from a practitioner who had not consented to being listed and reviewed. The Commissioner found that "a reasonable person would not generally consider the collection, use and disclosure of review and rating information of health professionals by RateMDs to represent an inappropriate purpose in the circumstances," and recognized "the public interest of prospective patients who may benefit from such reviews and ratings in selecting a health professional." The consent complaint was found not well-founded. The one practice the Commissioner objected to was a paid feature that let professionals hide reviews, which RateMDs agreed to drop. Review My Therapy has no such feature.

How that applies here. We do not solicit reviews for or on behalf of any therapist. Therapists cannot choose which reviews about them are published or pay to hide them. A review on RMT is not an endorsement by the therapist and is not the therapist's advertising. What these standards do prohibit is a registrant asking clients for reviews or promoting their RMT rating in their own marketing, so we recommend against doing either if your college restricts testimonials.

If you believe a specific review was solicited or influenced by a therapist, report it via Feedback and we will investigate under our Site Guidelines.

Sources: CRPO Professional Practice Standards, Standard 6.2: Advertising (PDF); CPSA Advice to the Profession: Advertising (PDF); Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, PIPEDA Findings #2020-002 (RateMDs). See also our Terms & Conditions, section 3.