told The Salt Lake Tribune that she reported to police and licensors<\/a> that Harker held her to the ground during therapy sessions, at times covering her nose and mouth so she couldn\u2019t breathe, and at other times dragging her on the floor.<\/p>\nShe was struggling with trauma from childhood sexual abuse when she started seeing Harker in 2012, she said, at the urging of her bishop in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.<\/p>\n
About three years into treatment, she alleges, Harker began holding her down and hurting her during near-daily appointments, telling her he was trying to rid her of a demon.<\/p>\n
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Mia Chard poses for a portrait in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, March 3, 2026.<\/p>\n
Harker allowed his therapy license to expire while state regulators investigated her report. But he has continued to see clients \u2014 as a life coach, a largely unregulated role in Utah. He said Thursday that he has not sought a therapy license since his expired in 2022. <\/p>\n
He was well known in the Latter-day Saints community not only as a therapist, but also for the support groups he ran through Life Changing Services, which aimed to help young members who felt they were struggling with pornography use or masturbation.<\/p>\n
He also authored Like Dragons Did They Fight, a faith-based self-help book that uses warrior imagery and spiritual-psychological principles to frame the struggle to overcome addiction and build \u201cself-mastery.\u201d <\/p>\n
The warrior imagery was on display Thursday: Harker held a leather tablet cover bearing a sticker that reads, \u201cI AM AN ETERNAL WARRIOR, ARE YOU?\u201d<\/p>\n
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Maurice Harker attends a hearing at the Behavioral Health Board meeting at the Division of Professional Licensing on Thursday, Oct. 1, 2026.\n<\/p>\n
Given the no-contest plea, the Division of Professional Licensing is seeking to ban him from reapplying for a license as a therapist over the next five years. Though the Behavioral Health Board supported that outcome on Thursday, it is not final yet and needs the approval of the division director, Mark Steinagel.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s possible Harker will continue fighting this proposed outcome. He did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment, but he peppered board members with questions about how he could contest the division\u2019s findings.<\/p>\n
Harker\u2019s supporters attempted to cast doubt on the allegations during public comment, including one couple who said that the husband had been working with Harker since he was 14 years old.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would not have a marriage without Maurice,\u201d the wife, Elora O\u2019Carey, said. The woman is listed as a life coach on Life Changing Services\u2019 website.<\/p>\n
Harker\u2019s supporters appeared frustrated when board members at one point cut off any futher public comments about his case, and soon after, ended the board meeting. \u201cKangaroo court!\u201d one man exclaimed as the online portion of the meeting ended.<\/p>\n
Among those voices, Chard defended herself. She said she had evidence of what happened, including a recording where he admitted to some of what she says happened. \u201cI\u2019m not lying,\u201d she said in the Thursday meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou did the right thing,\u201d she told board members. \u201cMy life has been altered beyond any shadow of a doubt.\u201d<\/p>\n
sltrib.com is now free to access \u2014 no subscription required. We made this decision because we believe access to trustworthy, independent news shouldn\u2019t depend on what you can afford \u2014 especially as misinformation and AI-generated content continue to rise.<\/p>\n
Free to read doesn\u2019t mean free to produce. Our reporters show up every day to ask hard questions and hold powerful institutions to account. That work takes resources. As a nonprofit newsroom, we rely on support from people who believe it matters. Make a donation today to fund local news that serves Utah communities.<\/p>\n
You can help us bring more local news to more communities today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To Maurice Harker\u2019s supporters, a licensing board\u2019s recommendation Thursday to stop him from returning to work as a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":868434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[366231,366234,97,366232,366233,366239,366230,259,260,46573,366238,366237,366236,366235],"class_list":["post-868433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-dopl","tag-harker-rolling-stone","tag-health","tag-life-changing-services","tag-life-changing-services-harker","tag-life-changing-services-utah-therapy","tag-maurice-harker","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth","tag-therapist","tag-utah-division-of-professional-licensing","tag-utah-therapist-abuse","tag-utah-therapist-charged","tag-utah-therapist-rolling-stone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=868433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/868434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}