Why Is There No Record of The Punk Rock Therapist Being a Licensed Mental Health Professional and Why Does The IRS Have No Record Of The Charity?

The Punk Rock Therapist promised free therapy in the wake of the Anti-Flag #metoo scandal but there is no record of Kristina Sarhadi ever having been a Clinically Licensed Therapist or Social Worker.

Correction 7/8/2024: Kristina Sarhadi is a graduate of the USC Masters of Social Work program per USC. A different journalist was able to get the school to confirm she was an Alumnus. I had previously been unable to get confirmation from the school due to privacy policies. I reached out to Sarhadi multiple times to ask if she could provide confirmation of her degree prior to publication, she refused and quickly took the claim of being a USC alumni down from her linkedin after I asked her about it. While I never claimed she did not graduate, only that I could not find any confirmation of it, for the sake of transparency it needs to be acknowledged that USC confirmed that Kristina Sarhadi was an alumni of the Social Work program in July of 2024. I have left the sections about it up for transparency and posterity. I apologize for the error.

In one of my earliest pieces I covered the then raging scandal surrounding the band Anti-Flag. Overnight the beloved three decade veterans of the punk scene had vanished, their social media erased and their patreon closed down with the simple message that Anti-Flag had disbanded. At that time, the prevailing theory was that Anti-Flag had broken up due to accusations of sexual assault levied at their lead singer Justin Sane (real name Justin Geever). These accusations were traced back to an episode of a podcast discussing allegations in the music scene called Enough. wherein a Social Worker and Therapist named Kristina Sarhadi alleged that she had been raped by a then unnamed punk musician 13 years prior. The internet quickly came to the conclusion using the generous clues Sarhadi had dropped that she was referring to Geever. While I wrote my piece during the first week of initial radio silence, by the time it was published Sarhadi had explicitly named Geever, Geever had denied any wrong doing, and the by now familiar cancellation spectacle that accompanies these kinds of accusation played out with all the denunciations and eventual disappearance of the band entirely. However the story did not end there, at the beginning of September Rolling Stone published a story identifying 12 additional alleged victims of Geever across the United States and Europe dating all the way back to the 90s. In conjunction with the Rolling Stone story, Sarhadi launched The Punk Rock Therapist, a charity aiming to allow Sarhadi to provide therapy to the alleged survivors of Geevers’ assaults and other victims of musician misconduct. In November of 2023, Sarhadi utilized the state’s momentary lifting of the statute of limitations to file a civil lawsuit in the final moments of New York’s Adult Survivor Act against both Geever and the other members of Anti-Flag, formally taking the allegations from the podcast to court and alleging that the other members of Anti-Flag had failed to take action to prevent Geever’s crimes. In mid march of 2024 Sarhadi released a public statement, alleging that Geever was fleeing to Europe and that the remaining members of Anti-Flag had hired representation to fight her claims in court.

I decided to pick the story back up to do some kind of follow up, there had obviously been significant updates and there were a handful of aspects I wanted to write about, from New York’s Adult Survivors Act to a certain disdain for due process that permeated the proceedings. During the prep for that I went back and reread various articles about the situation, the founding of The Punk Rock Therapist and Podcaast episodes and I started to notice certain inconsistencies about how Sarhadi described her qualifications herself or how they were described by others across different interviews and articles. This eventually lead me to try and track down more concrete answers, which I have still struggled to find regarding Sarhadi’s qualifications and The Punk Rock Therapist organization as a whole.

I am a writer, while I’ve described myself as a journalist at times, especially when investigating this story, I’m not classically trained which is why this piece took a very long time to put together compared to my other pieces. I had to be absolutely sure that what I was saying was accurate, and that I had checked this from every conceivable angle. I can’t stand around saying that #metoo journalism is sloppy and accuses people of very serious charges without due diligence while myself shooting from the hip. What I am alleging here is a serious charge that could potentially result in serious ramifications beyond even what I could reasonably infer, not just for Sahradi, but many others, it deserved serious research and me doing everything I could to report on the facts, not starting with a conclusion and moving backwards. Had a single piece of state approved licensure to be a Social Worker or Therapist appeared during the course of this, no matter how much time I spent working on this story, it would’ve been dead.

I found the proof that remains at the center of this piece three weeks ago, which is that Sarhadi appears in none of the databases that states are required to maintain to catalogue licensed professionals. I spent the interim doing everything I could to prove it wrong. I spoke with mental health professionals, lawyers, I reached out to every person I possibly could for comment, people on the board of The Punk Rock Therapist, bands that had raised money for them, Rolling Stone, the Enough. podcast, and Sarhadi herself, all in an attempt to see if anyone could provide me with any kinds of certifications for Sarhadi. None provided any proof that she at any point has been a state professional board licensed social worker or therapist. I called the New York licensing offices multiple times to double, triple check that there was no way Sarhadi could’ve slipped through the cracks. I went through the records of State Licensed Social Workers and Therapists in all 50 States trying to find anything I missed. If you are doubting my commitment to getting this right, know that I voluntarily spent my free time on the phone with the IRS. I requested documentation of certification that Sarhadi is required to have and be accessible to the public by law multiple times if she is the professional she repeatedly claims to be, I gave her nearly 2 weeks to do so, she has refused all of those requests.

The following is my findings, it is long, but I believe necessarily so. Ultimately I leave the judgement of those findings up to the reader.

The System

Before we can really jump into my findings I feel I need to provide a bit of background with regards to the Mental Healthcare System in America, the various kinds of professionals that exist within it, the differences between them, and the broader licensure system. This system is complex, a congregation of state and professional regulation, professionals with different levels of experience across various intersecting disciplines and levels of education, and then on top of that all of these things vary state to state. In addition with this story you have to account for alternative medicine as well which is in itself an entire rabbit hole I’ll do my best to explain a bit later.

Most people would be hard pressed to tell you the difference between a psychiatrist and a psychologist, despite the vast difference in educational experience, responsibility and licensing between the two (Psychiatrists are medical doctors who have finished med school and are able to prescribe medicine among other responsibilities, Psychologists are more focused on therapy or performing evaluations.) In that same vein I don’t think most people would even know the vast licensure, educational, and experiential differences between a Licensed Family Therapist and a Holistic Therapist and simply believe they are slightly different specialties within the same professional framework similar to a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC). The system is complex, sometimes necessarily in order to accommodate the vast different kinds of professionals and the kinds of care they provide, but at the same time it can be understandably indecipherable to the general public. In fact it’s really only because of personal experience within the system and knowing so many people who work in it that I was able to notice the discrepancies that animate this story.

For the sake of this story we are going to focus on Social Workers and Therapists, as those are two of the titles that Sarhadi claims. In America professional board clinically certified Therapists and Social Worker are licensed by the state who insures that certain criteria are met by prospective Mental Health workers in order to operate under the titles of Therapist, Social worker, etc. These criteria range from requirements on education, training, certifications, hours of field experience and so on. Though the exact requirements can vary state to state, all require a license from the state to practice as a therapist or social worker and that all claiming those titles have a baseline of education, competency and experience. Social Workers who have state licensure are most commonly denoted with the abbreviations LCSW (Licensed Clinical Social Worker), LMSW (Licensed Master's of Social Work) or LSW (Licensed Social Worker). Common licensure for therapists include, LPC (Licensed Professional Counselor), LPCMH(Licensed Professional Counselor of Mental Health), LMFT( Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist) and LMHC (licensed mental health counselor) among others.

While there is no National Database, every state keeps its’ own records of the Social Workers, Therapists, and other mental health professionals that can be accessed by the public. The Association of Social Works Board maintains a page with links to every State’s directory that can be easily accessed. The public is supposed to be able to verify that those who present themselves as Therapists and Social Workers and solicit work under those titles are in fact the licensed professionals they claim to be.

There is no record of a Kristina Sarhadi having ever been licensed or working as a state licensed therapist or social worker in New York, or anywhere else for that matter. Entering her name in the New York State Education Department Office Of Professions Database, the board which certifies and keeps track of certifications of the various different stripes of Social Workers and Therapists, among other professions like Nurses, Pharmacists, etc, returns no results. Sarhadi’s name does not appear in the records of any of the other 49 states a well. To double check, I called the New York office, they affirmed that there was no record of Sarhadi having ever had ANY certification from that office. When I inquired if it was possible that Sarhadi’s certification had simply lapsed and that’s why her name wasn’t showing up, the office informed me that even if it had lapsed, it would’ve shown up in their database.

I reached out to Sarhadi to see if she had perhaps been certified under a different name (The State of New York requires notice of name change within 30 days) and if she could provide documentation of such certification, she refused and has continually refused multiple requests for such information. In the state of New York, where Kristina Sarhadi resides and “practices” she is not, nor has she ever been certified as a licensed family or clinical therapist, equivalent or social worker. When asked for this documentation, Sarhadi responded “we are not in the business of providing anything to anyone”.

The Social Worker

First we’re going to talk about Sarhadi’s claim of being a social worker, because that is a bit more cut and dry. Sarhadi consistently calls herself a Social Worker, it’s how she introduces herself on the enough. podcast, and it appears on many of her own social media profiles, as well as on The Punk Rock Therapist website. At times, the word “recovering” is placed in front of it, but not always. As I stated before, there is no record of Sarhadi now, or ever having been a Social Worker within the State of New York.

The State of New York requires Social Workers to be licensed with the state, and that those social workers be LCSW or LMSWs. I spoke to multiple individuals at the New York office and they were incredibly clear that somebody could not practice as a Social Worker in the state of New York without those certifications with the State. When I reached out to Sarhadi for comment about the discrepancy and asking if she could provide proof of licensure she responded with this.

“My list of certifications, degrees, diplomas, licenses, accreditations, coursework, CEUs, fieldwork, internships, and work experience is extensive, ongoing and supported by multiple professionals at the highest levels of this field.”

Sarhadi however has denied my requests to see any of these extensive qualifications (including the ones she is required to provide to the public). Sarhadi at one point offered to show me her qualifications only under the condition that I provide her with my legal name, which I declined, these professionals are not supposed to be allowed to withhold their licensing from you unless you meet their demands. If Sarhadi is as experienced as she claims to be in this field, she is no doubt aware of the licensing requirements and their availability to the public. But this archived instagram post from 2022 has Sarhadi listing all of her qualifications on her Kingston Reiki instagram. You will notice that while she claims to have a masters of social work, nowhere on that list does the word “Social Worker” appear, though it reappears in her current branding.

caption...

•Certified Reiki Master (8th Generation in the lineage of Mikao Usui, the founder of Reiki)
•Master of Social Work with 17 years clinical experience
•Certified Holistic Health and Nutrition Counselor
•International Health Leadership Award recipient
•Chronogrammie Winner: Best Reiki Practitioner
•Domestic Violence Counselor
•Crime Victims Legal Advocate
•Mindfulness and Breathwork Teacher
•Meditation Teacher
•Clinical Case Manager in Therapeutic Foster Care
•Family Support Specialist
•Head Preschool Teacher
•Early Intervention Specialist
•Ongoing Services Coordinator for Early Intervention
•CBT Therapist
•Problem Solving and Motivational Interviewing Therapist
•Holistic Health Clinic Manager
•Childcare Supervisor for Parent Education and Intervention
•Childcare Supervisor for Pre- and Post-Adoption Resource Center
•Youth Mentor
•Youth Arts and Activism Group Coordinator
•Lead Editor in Academic Publishing
•Editorial Assistant at a certain NYC Social Justice publishing house…
•Poetry Magazine Editor
•Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Writing
•Migrant Farmworker Advocate
•Research Assistant in Latin(x) Gender Studies
•Bar Manager/Bartender (same as therapist 😅)
•Survivor of Complex Trauma (CPTSD dx)
•PTSD + Clinical Depression patient (ask me how to address these naturally/holistically)
•Ordained Minister
•Scorpio
•Projector (2/4) w Emotional Authority (Human Design)
•Public Speaker
•Published Poet
•Cupcake Queen
•Vegetarian of 21 years +
•Animal Shelter Assistant
•Cat Mom
•Sister to three of the best women on earth
•Aunt to two pure beams of light (and another arriving 10/31 🎃)
•Concerned Citizen
•Lightworker seeking other 5D beings✨

AMA in the comments and see you soon 🖤

When I reached out out to Sarhadi for final request for comment before the publishing of this piece Sarhadi said the following

This is just on its’ face untrue. As I’ve shown repeatedly, Sarhadi has claimed she is a social worker, something that within the State of New York a LCSW is required. Claiming “I never claimed to be a LCSW” is splitting hairs here, it’d be like saying “I claimed to be a Dentist, I never claimed to be a DDS”, they’re the same thing. As it stands, despite claiming to be a Social Worker across many different platforms and raising money surrounding that claim, there is no evidence that Kristina Sarhadi is, or has ever been a Social Worker.

The Therapist

Sarhadi’s claims of being a Therapist are a bit more complicated, because the term “Therapy” and “Therapist” can be a bit more nebulous. The name of Sarhadi’s group is “The Punk Rock Therapist”, the wording on the website (that also lists her as a social worker) is that she is offering therapy. Though Sarhadi at times identifies herself as a “Holistic Therapist” (something entirely different from a clinically licensed Therapist which we’ll get into later), she doesn’t always.

Generally speaking, when one thinks of a Therapist offering Therapy they are thinking of some stripe of psychoanalysis from someone who is trained, certified, and licensed in that clinical tradition. There are a variety of disciplines and modalities within the broader umbrella of Clinical Therapy and there are multiple different kinds of professionals that provide this kind of care, but generally speaking (and in the state New York) we are talking about at least a State Licensed professional who has completed at bare minimum Masters level coursework within the field. If someone introduced themselves as a Therapist, let alone created an entire brand calling themselves a Therapist, I think most people would assume that person was clinically licensed.

As I presented before, there is no evidence showing that Sarhadi is, or has ever been, a clinically licensed Therapist with the State of New York or anywhere else.

The Graduate

Correction 7/8/2024: Kristina Sarhadi is a graduate of the USC Masters of Social Work program per USC. A different journalist was able to get the school to confirm she was an Alumnus. I had previously been unable to get confirmation from the school due to privacy policies. I reached out to Sarhadi multiple times to ask if she could provide confirmation of her degree prior to publication, she refused and quickly took the claim of being a USC alumni down from her linkedin after I asked her about it. While I never claimed she did not graduate, only that I could not find any confirmation of it, for the sake of transparency it needs to be acknowledged that USC confirmed that Kristina Sarhadi was an alumni of the Social Work program in July of 2024. I have left the sections about it up for transparency and posterity. I apologize for the error.

Sirhadi’s linkedin (I only archived the non member view) states that she completed modality trainings and graduated with a Masters in Social Work, a degree that is a prerequisite to be a licensed Therapist or Social worker in New York and most other states, from the University of Southern California in 2015. However reviewing the commencement program from 2015 that lists all of the graduates of the USC Masters of Social Work program, both at USC and its’ Satellite programs, Sahardi’s name is not listed, nor is it listed as a graduate of any other program between 2013 and 2021. While an MSW denotes that one has completed a degree in Masters level Social Work schooling, it is not the same as a license. A licensed Social Worker would be denoted with an L before the MSW. Without an MSW Sarhadi would not meet the minimum requirements to be a state licensed social worker or therapist in New York, even if she did wish to be certified.

I reached out to Sarhadi on the evening of March 26th for comment, by the morning of March 27th she had removed attending USC from her page entirely (you can still find the old version on the archive I linked), though still strangely claiming she had an MSW without any citation of from where or when. By the afternoon of March 27th, Sarhadi’s linkedin had disappeared entirely, the wording of “Kristina Sarhadi, MSW” also disappeared from the description of The Punk Rock Therapists instagram around the end of March, though unfortunately I was unable to archive the differences due to consistent issues archiving the instagram page (if you choose not to believe this because of that, I understand). It seems the MSW wording has been slowly disappearing from the internet since I contacted her.

When reached for comment Sarhadi did not provide me with any documentation verifying she had completed Masters level coursework in Social Work, or any other discipline, from any University.

The Case Manager

I do believe Sarhadi was a “case manager” at some point, or at least that is the claim of professional work she’s made that seems the most believable. Her linkedin stated that she worked with two community outreach organizations in New York, The Northeast Parent and Child Society and Northern Rivers Family of Services, both from 2012 to 2016. I believe she was a case manager because it’s only one of Sarhadi’s claims of mental health work that appears outside of the CVs she prepares herself. Kristina comes up as a case manager on Health Grades, a website for looking up various healthcare providers (though the address provided on healthgrades doesn’t appear to currently have a mental healthcare office listed on google, it’s possible they moved.) These organizations provide a variety of social services to families in the area. I was able to get in contact with an individual at Northern Rivers, who understandably due to company policy could neither confirm or deny if Sarhadi had been an employee. Still of all her employment claims, this seems to at least be the most supported.

I don’t wish to denigrate the work that case managers do in these organizations, obviously every job is an important cog in the machine of providing services to the communities they serve, but there is a marked difference between being a case manager and a social worker, both in responsibilities, care provided and very crucially certification and education. As a case manager Sarhadi may have worked closely with social workers, she may have assisted social workers in the administration of care to patients, she may have provided the community she served with valuable services, it’s possible she may have been delegated work beyond the scope of a case manager, but she was not a Social Worker at any point during her time with these organizations. This would be similar to the distinction between a Lawyer and a Paralegal, a Paralegal may do important, vital work for a lawyer and their clients, but they are not lawyers, and no amount of work with a Lawyer would make a Paralegal a Lawyer. However, if a paralegal, no matter their experience working under a lawyer, started calling themselves a lawyer and representing clients without the proper education and certifications, this would be a very major violation, both of their clients and the larger system in general.

Alternative Medicine

The other titles that Sarhadi claims; Holistic Therapist, Reiki Master, and Certified Holistic Health Counselor all broadly fall under the umbrella of “Alternative Medicine”. That is to say they all exist outside of the traditional medical and scientific framework that governs traditional medicine.

Sarhadi’s linkedin states she received her certificate in Holistic Therapy from the notorious Institute of Integrative Nutrition, an online “Holistic Nutrition School” that trains various stripes of “health coaches”. Notably there is no broad regulation for being a “health coach”, nor is there any universal educational, training, or background standards for “Health Coaches” one would find with State Licensed Social Workers and Therapists. Health Coaching is almost entirely unregulated, there is nothing stopping you from waking up tomorrow morning and declaring yourself a health coach. The closest thing is The National Board for Health & Wellness Coaching who since 2016 have been certifying Health Coaches in an attempt to get the industry more on par with the standards of traditional healthcare providers and you can look up coaches that are certified through that organization, and it does appear that in the past decade or so there have been at least some attempts by the industry to have more oversight, but health coaches are not required to register with NBHWC and it’s still a far cry from the kind of safeguards one would find surrounding traditional Therapy and Social Work. Sarhadi’s name does not appear in that certification list, but she did graduate from IIN before NBHWC’s foundation.

There is no database or central accreditation agency for any of these things, you can find programs and trainings for them online, but there’s no formal organization setting any standards for anyone practicing these things and keeping track of who is following those nonexistent standards. This of course is in stark contrast to traditional Mental Health programs within the framework of western medicine which keeps extensive licensing and educational records and requirements. We can assume that Sarhadi has whatever certifications she needs from these institutions, but there’s really no way to check. There’s obviously no laws against talking to someone you believe to have insight, nor is it illegal to pay them for that insight, but it’s a far cry from the kind of “Therapist” one would reasonably think of when one claims to be a therapist and is explicitly offering Therapy, and definitively not a “Social Worker” and I’m unsure how New York’s licensing regulators would react to a health coach presenting themselves as a Social Worker and seeing patients under that title without the prerequisite licensing.

Interesting I was able to find this legal guide for health coaches which provide some dos and don’ts for health coaches in their practice. I found these passages interesting for no reason in particular

Legal guidelines are important as well. Too often I see health and wellness coaches wading into risky waters by offering services that cross the line into a licensed practice. Most often these licensed practices are medicine, dietetics, or therapy/counseling.

Also

DO NOT:

1. Advise on diet, exercise or mental health issues unless licensed to do so in your state and the client is also located in your state.

2. Make claims that certain products or programs can treat, cure or diagnose medical or psychological conditions unless there is legitimate, reputable scientific evidence to support the claims and you cite to such evidence in all communications about the proposed product or program benefits.

3. Practice outside your licensed scope, education, training, and/or experience.

4. Misrepresent qualifications, limitations of education, training, expertise and experience, such as by using misleading titles (e.g., a health coach using the title of “Disease Manager” when the coach has no clinical training).

I also found it interesting that on this coaching academy website it pretty clearly states that “Providing Psychotherapy” is outside the Scope of Practice of a health coach. Another website guide for “natural healers” clearly says “While coaches don’t provide psychological counseling, they can encourage clients to improve their mindset, which can help improve their behavior”. It does appear that even this world of Health Coaches is acutely aware of how to present what they do.

Holistic/Reiki

The National Institute of Health defines Holistic Medicine as the following

Holistic medicine is an attitudinal approach to health care rather than a particular set of techniques. It addresses the psychological, familial, societal, ethical and spiritual as well as biological dimensions of health and illness.

While that sounds good on paper, and there are licensed care providers who take a Holistic approach, “Holistic Medicine” ends up being something separate entirely. Similar to words like “organic” or “natural” where there’s really no fixed meaning and holistic practices almost all take place within the alternative medicine umbrella. There is no official qualifications for one to become a “Holistic Therapist”, nor is there any professional licensing body ensuring cohesive standards and practices among Holistic Therapy practitioners. One can become a “Certified Holistic Therapist” by completing a $100 online course like the one found here, a far cry from the years of graduate and post graduate education, thousands of clinical experience hours, and state licensure exams required to become a traditional therapist.

Sarhadi also claims to be a Reiki master, something I am admittedly not familiar with so I’ll let WebMD summarize it for me:

Reiki therapy is based on an Eastern belief that vital energy flows through your body. The idea is that a person who specializes in reiki treatment, referred to as a reiki master, uses gentle touch – or places their hands just above your body – to help guide this energy in a way that leads to balance and healing.

While there’s no research to show that the energy field involved in reiki exists, you may find it relaxing.

The Charity

Sarhadi launched “The Punk Rock Therapist” around the same time the Rolling Stone expose on Justin came out. The Punk Rock Therapist aims to raise funds so that survivors of Geever and other music industry predators can receive free therapy, ostensibly from Sarhadi who is titular Punk Rock Therapist. The Punk Rock Therapist website claims that the donations to the organization are tax deductible. Though common for most nonprofit websites, The Punk Rock Therapist website features no language or documentation of 501(3)(C) status, the IRS tax designation for non-profit organizations that allow donations to be tax exempt. While it did not when I first contacted Sarhadi, the website and instagram now features an EIN number allegedly tied to the charity.

What caught my eye was this statement from their latest press release

Since we have provided over $65,000 worth of free therapy to survivors in our first six months alone.

This lead me to the question had The Punk Rock Therapist raised $65000 in funding or had they provided $65000 worth of billable hours for free? When asked for comment Sarhadi clarified that the The Punk Rock Therapist had not received 65k in donations, rather that all therapy she provided was free and that $65,000 number was calculated by multiplying the $200/hr average cost of therapy by the hours of care provided. It should be noted that the $200 average hourly rate is the rate for care given by State LICENSED and certified mental health providers.

Sarhadi initially offered to give me the EIN that at the time was missing from The Punk Rock Therapists website, as well as offered to put me in touch with their Tax Attorney who would be able to answer my questions regarding the organization’s status as a charity. I tried to take her up on that offer, but it never materialized. However I was able to enter the EIN number Sarhadi had posted elsewhere into the IRS database, but the IRS website has no record of a charitable organization matching that EIN.

I called the IRS to double check to see if there was some kind of error. They had no record of any organization matching the EIN. When I reached back out to Sarhadi to let her know the IRS had no record, she provided me with the following

So at least according to Sarhadi The Punk Rock Therapist organization DOES have an EIN, but that does not necessarily mean you have received tax exempt status, it is simply the first step among many to becoming a charitable organization. It’s entirely possible that Sarhadi is in the process of registering as a non profit, especially based off the paperwork provided, but as it stands the IRS has no record of The Punk Rock Therapist existing as a charitable organization.

The Big Asterisk

The remaining doubt here is that Sarhadi knows something I don’t and that she is refusing to share it. I’m not so zealous in this that I can’t see the possibility that I don’t know what I don’t know. Any state licensed healthcare professional is supposed to show up in that database, as I’ve been told multiple times by multiple people in that office. If there is some confluence of laws or exemptions or loopholes or grandfathering I’m simply not privy to it. After all you’ll remember in our correspondence she said “real journalists, investigators, documentarians, and politicians will pay this no mind and will quickly discredit you, as they have the information you believe doesn’t exist.”

This of course raises the question that if this information exists, and all those people already have access to it why not simply share it with the public, which would just be the right thing in general in the interest of public transparency and of course render this whole article moot? What I’m asking for are the credentials of someone who claims to be a healthcare worker, myself and any other member of the general public are supposed to be able to verify those qualifications. That’s among one of the points of the licensure databases to begin with, a professional’s licensed qualifications is not supposed to be something that is only for those who are “in the know”. Any profession that requires state licensing, from doctors, to cops, to masseuses, are not supposed to be allowed to decide who knows their qualifications and who doesn’t, and it flies in the face of transparency. If someone knocked on your door claiming to be a police officer and you asked for their badge number and they refused to give it to you only responding with “real journalists, documentarians and politicians know my badge number.” you’d be smart not to open that door.

I’ve reached out to Sarhadi multiple times as well as other individuals involved with The Punk Rock Therapist, the whole intent being to avoid the possibility that I missed something, yet not a single piece of documentation of Sarhadi’s qualifications has been provided. I’ve done an extreme amount of due diligence trying to make sure I’m correct, I do not understand why, if this kind of evidence exists, it can’t be shared. Unless she’s trying to set me up for some kind of gotcha trap, but if such evidence exists, it is not because I didn’t do everything possible to find it, it’s because Sarhadi and her circle withheld it, I don’t really know how much of a gotcha that is.

Rolling Stone notably referred to Sarhadi as a “Holistic Therapist and Health Coach”, not a Therapist and Social Worker, in their article about the allegations. Rolling Stone is arguably the highest profile publication to cover Sarhadi, surely they would be among the “real journalists” that Sarhadi would provide the her real qualifications. Though they appear to have ignored the inconsistencies, Rolling Stone arrived at the same conclusion I did, that Sarhadi is not a Therapist or Social Worker, but that Sarhadi is a Holistic Therapist and Health Coach. So is Rolling Stone wrong too?

If I have made some mistake, I will obviously offer any correction.

Conclusion

Information is power. I believe that forever.
-Karen Barth Menzies ESQ, attorney for Kristina Sarhadi, enough. Episode 50

Despite extensive searching there is no evidence that Kristina Sarhadi is now or has ever been a Licensed Therapist or Social Worker, and the status of The Punk Rock Therapist as a charity is at best still ongoing.

Sarhadi may technically be able to claim that she can advertise herself as a therapist and the care that she is providing as therapy, though it appears to be outside what the general public would think of when told someone is providing therapy. Whether or not you believe that to be an accurate representation is up to you, though it does seem a bit strange that someone who champions herself as an emissary of accountability and transparency would rely so heavily on technicality. Some may believe I am a bad faith actor due to the positions I have taken around moral panics elsewhere in my work, and yes, it is that skepticism that lead me to investigate like I did but none of that changes the fact that even if the most virtuous #metoo activist set out to look for this information they would find, or rather not find, the exact same things I have.

The question of “what are your certifications?” should not be a controversial one to health professionals, and to all the one’s that I know, it isn’t. These vast databases that I combed through exist so the the public can verify that the Healthcare Provider in front of them and offering them services is who they say they are and are in fact qualified to provide them to you.

I reached out to the Enough. Podcast, the program which launched Sarhadi into the spotlight and she continually refers to herself as a social worker and therapist throughout if they could provide any documentation of Sarhadi’s clinical licensure. Despite Enough. continually boosting both Sarhadi and The Punk Rock Therapist organization as care providers for victims of sexual assault over the past 6 months, they did not respond to my request for comment. I reached out to Rolling Stone to see if they had any documentation of Sarhadi’s qualifications, Rolling Stone did not return my request for comment. I reached out to various board members of The Punk Rock Therapist, Sarhadi’s lawyers, and Pity Party, a band that had done extensive fundraising for The Punk Rock Therapist, to see if they could provide any substantive proof of Sarhadi’s licensing, all did not return my request for comment. Again, all very strange none were willing to account for Sarhadi’s qualifications while constantly presenting themselves as beacons of accountability.

As it stands it appears that Sarhadi is fundraising and providing care under credentials that there is simply no record of her ever having. Sarhadi’s claims that she hasn’t claimed these titles is just boldly untrue. While this of course has no bearing on the merits of her accusations against Anti-Flag, Sarhadi has positioned herself as an authority figure within the larger Punk community using these credentials and raised money off them, as well as appears to have seen patients under these credentials. The patients Sarhadi is serving are allegedly victims of incredibly horrific crimes and the question arises if these people are aware of Sarhadi’s actual qualifications, or simply the qualifications that she claims. Sarhadi may herself be the victim of a horrific crime and her intention to create therapy charity for other alleged survivors may be virtuous, but neither of those thing change the fact that she is providing healthcare under the auspices of qualifications there is no record of her having.

What conclusion you reach with this information is up to you, you can double check any of these databases if you wish, all of this stuff is public record. But I believe this raises serious questions regarding Sarhadi’s qualifications to be doing the work she’s doing and how she has presented herself.

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Please direct any inquiries to jacktorrancewrites@proton.me