Psychological counselor application time and conditions

In 2017, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security has canceled the unified identification of national professional qualifications for psychological counselors. Currently, there is no unified national application arrangement for admission-type psychological counselors. Most of the exams for mainstream industry training certificates on the market are held on the third Saturday of May and November each year. Registration materials can be submitted throughout the year, and there is no fixed "registration deadline"” ； There is no national unified threshold for application, and different certification-issuing agencies have different requirements. The mainstream application requirement is a college degree or above (not limited to majors). Applicants with junior or above professional titles in psychology/medicine/education can relax the academic requirements. Some institutions can relax to a technical secondary school degree for those with relevant professional experience.

A while ago, I was helping a schoolgirl who was working as a social worker in the community sort out the application materials. She flipped through three pages of search results and became more and more confused: "Why do some people say that registration will close next month, some say that non-psychology majors cannot take the exam at all, and some say that if you take the exam, you can get an annual salary of 200,000? ”

In fact, most of the confusion about the application time is the marketing routine of the institution. Many training institutions open classes on a rolling basis, and once they have gathered a group of students, they will submit exam registrations uniformly. Therefore, they often use the rhetoric of "the quota is almost full" and "registration will close soon" to urge you to place an order. Last time I met a girl who worked in HR. She was deceived by the organization and said that the registration deadline for the May exam was in March. She hurriedly paid more than 8,000 in "guarantee" fees. Later I learned that as long as the materials were submitted to the review channel of the issuing agency 2 months before the exam, she could be registered. For the November exam, the materials could be submitted before the end of September, and I spent thousands more in vain. Of course, there are exceptions. For certificates sponsored by some local industry associations, additional exams will be arranged 3-4 times a year, and the time is not fixed. Before signing up, just read the official notice from the certificate issuer, and don’t just listen to the salesman’s words.

As for the question that everyone is arguing about the most, "whether the application requirements are card majors", in fact, there is no one-size-fits-all answer. Different issuing parties have different positions and naturally have different requirements: For example, the training certificate of the Institute of Psychology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which is relatively highly recognized in the industry, requires a college degree or above. There is no restriction on majors. Fresh graduates who are studying at the undergraduate level can also apply one year in advance. ； If you have been a psychological counselor in primary and secondary schools for five or six years, or have been working as a nurse in a psychiatric department for a long time, even if you only have a technical secondary school degree, many industry associations will accept applications for certificates, as long as you can issue relevant work certificates.

There is now a lot of controversy over this type of certificate on the Internet, and what both sides say actually makes sense. One group is a strict policy group. They think that such certificates are only proof of training experience and are not nationally recognized admission qualifications. After taking the exam, you cannot go directly to the psychology department of a public hospital for consultation, let alone open a psychological counseling studio with this certificate. If the institution tells you that "you can get a job with a certificate after passing the exam" or "you can make money by being affiliated", it is 100% deceptive. There is really nothing wrong with this. The other group is the practical group that has been working hard in the industry for many years. They feel that many newcomers with zero foundation know nothing about psychology. The process of preparing for the exam forces you to systematically learn the most basic contents such as general psychology, developmental psychology, and consulting ethics. With a certificate, you can go to a psychological institution to apply for an assistant and accept public welfare consulting orders. You will definitely have an advantage over a novice with no experience. I used to know a girl who was a kindergarten teacher. After she passed the certificate, she opened a small emotional counseling corner in the kindergarten to provide psychological counseling for children who had just entered the kindergarten. The kindergarten also recognized her. She later received many parent-child consultation orders from parents, which can be regarded as a side job.

In the final analysis, the core of whether you should take the exam and which one to apply for depends on your purpose of taking this certificate. If you want to be a psychiatrist, then this certificate is useless. You have to take the medical license exam. ； If you want to become a psychology teacher in school, you must first take the psychology teacher qualification certificate. This certificate can be considered as a bonus at most. ； If you are just interested and want to get started, or want to add a buff to your own job - for example, as an HR to provide psychological counseling for employees, as a social worker to connect with people in need, or as a kindergarten teacher to deal with children and parents, then just choose a recognized certification agency to take the exam. Don't apply for the "job package" that costs tens of thousands of dollars, which is all IQ tax.

I have helped seven or eight people around me get through the application pitfalls. If you are not sure whether your background can apply, or you don’t know which certification agency to choose, you can also leave a message and I will give you some advice when I am free. Anyway, just don’t pay unjustly to the agency.~