It had been my experience, until recently, that as professions mature, they become more mindful of governance, and assuring the quality of their service provision -- ethical delivery.

This is absolutely NOT THE CASE with the coaching field, and I think this is further evidence of its, at least, partial origin in various cultic bodies.

It was always my position that the closest analogue to coaching is the 'therapy' relationship, and, why not appropriate governance structures from that field?

They wiggle around this by keeping definitions of coaching malleable. They wiggle around this by staffing their governance bodies with 'volunteers'...sound familiar???

They have created an entire matrix of pseudoscience solutions, and pseudo-legal structures of governance and review.

Again, I have to wonder even about the business logic of doing this, and I have to wonder about all the people who do understand professional responsibility, and professional liability, WHO LET THIS HAPPEN, or participated therein...many, many.

I had a partner at one point who was formerly an attorney. I asked him to ponder 'how' X, a licensed psychologist could sit as the Director of a body that violating every best practice principle of his field, and many professional codes of conduct. The attorney could not get his head around my question. He had, evidently joined the 'cult'.

Always, always there is this idea that so much 'good' is being done...all of these lofty goals are being achieved, while so little care is being taken with actual clients, or in protecting the interests of clients as a whole.

It is all very curious.