The nine HCPC-protected psychologist titles

The HCPC protects nine psychologist titles. Two are generic statutory titles — Practitioner psychologist and Registered psychologist — and seven are the specialism (adjectival) titles registrants actually use: Clinical, Counselling, Educational, Forensic, Health, Occupational, and Sport and exercise psychologist. The two generic titles are approved in the HCPC’s regulatory order, but a registrant cannot register solely under them — HCPC advises registrants to use their adjectival/specialism title so the record is accurate. The verification rule follows: match the specialism title to the register entry, not the generic word. By contrast the bare word “psychologist,” together with “counsellor,” “psychotherapist” and “therapist,” is not protected and requires no register.