Professional Organisations

Membership in a professional body is a sign that a practitioner has been accepted by agreement to abide by a code of ethics and conduct. These are not licensing or registration bodies and therefore can only recognise an individual practitioner as being a member, and where relevant, may offer an accreditation of graded membership level. These are not government bodies and therefore do not confer “registration” or “licensure” for the ‘right to practice’ or right to use a ‘protected title’ (eg. clinical psychologist). Some of these organisations may have a voluntary ‘register’ such as a list of names of members made public, but none of these organisations regulate the country specific legislative element. It is important to note that practitioners who have been trained outside of Hong Kong may have gained licensure (eg. Individual states in the USA grant this) or registration (eg. the Health Care Professions Council in the UK grants this), but Hong Kong currently has no legislation around protected titles, registration, and/or licensure of any mental health professionals outside of the fields of psychiatry and social work.

The links to the websites of the professional bodies below will take you to external websites. The Psynamo Group are not the authors of these external websites and it is up to each individual to decide for themselves how useful the information may be to them.

INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS

American Counselling Association

American Psychiatric Association

American Psychological Association

Association for Psychological Science

Australian Counselling Association

Australian Psychological Society

British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies

British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy

British Psychological Society

National Association for Alcohol & Drug Abuse Counsellors (USA)

Asia Pacific Association of Addiction Professionals