In 2023, concerning statements were made by or on behalf of the Psychologists Board to a government agency that contracts the services of psychologists, and to psychologists and others who expressed their concerns to the Board. The statements have generated distress, and they were and remain problematic. It is not clear if the position has been clarified to the government agency.
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In 2023, concerning statements were made by or on behalf of the Board to a government agency that contracts the services of a significant number of psychologists, and then by email to psychologists who expressed their concern to the Psychologists Board. To protect people’s privacy, the full communications will not be set out in full here. It is, however, important to understand that these are the kinds of things that were being said by or on behalf of the Board:
- “If there are tasks, services or activities defined in another scope of practice, they must not do those things.”
- “Graduates [of a postgraduate diploma in psychological practice that qualifies one for the ‘Psychologist’ scope] should not be making mental health diagnoses. They can complete basic assessments but not make diagnoses and should not be doing assessment, diagnosis or treatment of complex or severe mental health disorders.”
- “[C]linical scope is required for making mental health diagnoses”
- “We know that there are many psychologists who have been practising outside their scope of practice and doing it without problem.”
- “The ‘Important Clarification re Scopes of Practice’ was … incorrect. In particular, the statement ‘practice is not restricted by scope, only title is restricted by scope’ does not align with what the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003 says about scopes.”
- “Past iterations of the Board gave practitioners incorrect information about scopes and had told people that all scopes do is protect title”.
- “[T]he advice we gave [to the government agency] was that clinical scope is required for making mental health diagnoses, but that counselling work for mild to moderate presentations is possible for psychologists with other scopes of practice.”
For reasons that have been explained in detail elsewhere, every one of these statements is problematic. They are all based on a misunderstanding of how the Board developed the scopes in 2003-2004 and applied them consistently between 2004-2021 and/or a belief that 15-17 years of prior practice by the Board was incorrect and/or a preference for an alternative interpretation.
(Please note: We have considered the ethics and legality of describing on this site what has been said to the government agency and concerned psychologists by or on behalf of the Board. We do not consider the Board’s statements to the government agency to have been confidential and, even if they were, there is such a high degree of public interest in resolving the issues that, in our view, disclosure in the public interest would override it.)