Standards of care and training pathways: why we need to distinguish them in psychology training reform

When someone sits across from a psychologist in distress, they need more than someone who knows the theory. They need a practitioner who can attune to their emotional state, understand their experience through psychological knowledge, respond safely and offer evidence-based care in an interpersonally responsive way.

Providing that care requires a complex combination of knowledge, practical skills, professional judgement and relational capacity.

Our training pathways must prepare psychologists to carry this responsibility. They must also support a diverse, skilled workforce capable of responding to community need.

Clear, rigorous standards of care are essential to protecting the public. So is ensuring that people can access psychological care when they need it.

The proposed reforms to Australian psychology training aim to increase training capacity and improve pathways into the workforce. Psychologists have also raised important concerns about what these changes could mean for the quality of care.

To have a meaningful conversation, we need to distinguish between two closely connected questions: what psychologists must be able to do, and how we prepare them to do it.

Questioning a training pathway does not mean questioning the importance of professional standards. We can insist on rigorous standards while examining whether our current system is the most effective, equitable and sustainable way to achieve them.

What is changing?

Currently, the main Australian pathways begin with an accredited four-year psychology sequence. This is followed by either an approved professional postgraduate qualification incorporating supervised placements, or an accredited fifth-year qualification followed by a supervised internship and the National Psychology Examination—the 5+1 pathway. The former 4+2 pathway closed to new applicants in June 2022. [1]

The Psychology Board’s September 2026 consultation report recommends a five-year accredited program, or equivalent, leading to general registration, with a separate postgraduate pathway for Area of Practice Endorsement. These reforms are not yet in effect. [2,3]

The Board says the competency threshold for general registration would remain unchanged. [2]

That commitment matters. The next question is how the redesigned training would reliably bring graduates to that threshold.

A demanding pathway is not automatically an effective one

Psychology requires substantial knowledge, practical skill and professional judgement. In therapeutic work, we need to assess risk, develop meaningful formulations, deliver evidence-based interventions, navigate ethical complexity and recognise the limits of our competence.

We also need to notice when a client feels misunderstood, adapt to their communication needs and respond thoughtfully when the therapeutic relationship becomes difficult.

These capabilities take time, teaching, supervised experience and feedback to develop.

Academic learning and research literacy are essential to this process. So is the ability to translate knowledge into care when a client’s experience does not fit neatly into a textbook.

Current pathways already include supervised practice. The question is whether the balance, sequencing and quality of learning prepare people as well as they could.

How consistently are students observed doing the work? How useful is the feedback they receive? How well do assessments capture their ability to respond to uncertainty, build a therapeutic relationship and recognise when they need support?

Those questions deserve as much attention as the number of years attached to a qualification.

Who gets to become a psychologist?

Training pathways also shape who can realistically enter the profession—and whose experiences and perspectives may be missing.

Ahpra’s June 2025 registration data recorded approximately 80% of psychology registrants as female. [6] Alongside this gender imbalance, we need to examine how financial barriers influence access to the profession.

A 2025 Australian Psychologist article argues that the financial demands of postgraduate training and unpaid placements perpetuate privilege and impede workforce diversity. The authors also identify the need for better research on students’ socioeconomic backgrounds. [7]

We need to make it possible for more people from different backgrounds to become psychologists: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, people from a wider range of cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds, people with disability, and people from rural and remote communities. Gender diversity matters too.

This should be an explicit goal of reform. Our profession needs a breadth of perspectives and lived experience to help us recognise assumptions, ask better questions and understand the different contexts in which distress occurs.

Shared identity does not guarantee good care, and psychologists can work effectively across differences. But a profession serving a diverse community should actively examine the barriers that narrow who gets to join it.

APAC has identified placement poverty, supervision capacity and accessibility for mature-age and graduate-entry students as important reform issues. [4]

Consider a capable student who can meet the academic requirements but cannot afford extended periods of reduced earnings. Or someone with caring responsibilities who cannot make placement arrangements fit around the people who depend on them.

When these circumstances prevent someone from qualifying, what have we selected for?

The ability to absorb financial hardship should not become a proxy for professional potential.

We risk losing capable practitioners before they ever reach the consulting room—and losing the perspectives they could bring to psychological care.

Improving access requires more than shortening a course. It requires financial support, workable training arrangements and properly resourced placements and supervision.

Reform must earn our confidence

There are legitimate concerns about the proposed model. The APS has identified unresolved questions about competency assurance, research training, supervision and placement capacity, qualification level and implementation. [5]

These need substantive answers. Keeping the same competencies on paper does not, by itself, establish that a new pathway can deliver them.

But the existing system also needs to justify how well it serves students, practitioners and the public.

I believe a revamp is needed. I want training that integrates psychological science, applied practice and the knowledge and perspectives of marginalised communities more meaningfully. Training that assesses competence rigorously and gives capable people a realistic opportunity to enter the profession.

We should evaluate reform by how well it prepares psychologists to provide excellent care, who it enables to become a psychologist, and whether it helps communities access the care they need.

The standard of care we owe clients should guide the design of training. The current design of training should remain open to change.

References:

Australian Psychology Accreditation Council. (n.d.). Pathways to registration.
https://apac.au/students/registration-pathways/

Psychology Board of Australia. (2026, September). Public consultation report: Redesigning the psychology higher degree program.
Read the report (copy hosted by AAPi).

Australian Association of Psychologists Inc. (2026, September 29). Psychology Board education and training reform update.
https://aapi.org.au/Web/About-AAPi/News/Articles/2026/Sept/Psychology_Board_Education_and_Training_Reform_Update.aspx

Australian Psychology Accreditation Council. (2026, June 15). APAC submits response to Higher Degree Redesign Project consultation.
https://apac.au/apac-submits-response-to-higher-degree-redesign-project-consultation/

Australian Psychological Society. (2026, September 29). APS response to PsyBA Higher Education pathways consultation paper release.
https://psychology.org.au/insights/aps-response-to-psyba-higher-education-pathways-co

Psychology Board of Australia. (2025, June 30). Registrant data.
Read the registration statistics.
This supports the approximately 80% female figure; it does not establish socioeconomic privilege.

Placement poverty perpetuates privilege and impedes diversification of the psychology workforce in Australia.(2025). Australian Psychologist.
https://doi.org/10.1080/13284207.2025.2558582
Author details need verification before presenting this entry as a complete APA reference.