Abstract

The aim of this study is to systematically analyze the status of psychological services such as legislation, qualification system, and provision of psychological services for public mental health, and to suggest future directions for psychological services to improve the national level of mental health. For this, 78 existing laws were found and analyzed using “psychology” and “psychological counseling” as key words on the Korean Law Information Center website. As a result, there was no distinct law solely discussing the psychological services. In particular, only the Improvement of Mental Health and the Support for Welfare Services for Mental Patients (in short, Mental Health Welfare Act) defines the qualifications and scope of work of mental health psychologists, one of the mental health specialists. However, this law has a limited scope of psychological services that could be offered and tends to be limited to those with mental illness. For licenses offered by governments for qualifications, there are mental health clinical psychologist, licensed by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, and clinical psychologist licensed by the Human Resources Development Service of Korea, but the difference in quality of expertise between these two is remarkable. In addition, it is difficult for the general public to identify a reliable service provider because of prevalence of inappropriate licenses issued by unqualified private service providers. In terms of public psychological services, the health and welfare sector lacks a delivery system in comparison to the demand for psychological services, while psychological professionals are proactively employed by various other field such as Ministry of National Justice, Ministry of National Defense, and local governments. Therefore, it can be stated that an independent legislation specifying the provision of psychological services and establishment of a license for global-standard psychologist is necessary. This legislation is expected to contribute significantly to the expansion of community-based psychological services. In particular it will improve the public access to psychological services, thereby advancing the people's mental health and quality of life.