Changes to Psychologist Training in Ontario: What “Modernization” Really Means
Mental health services and psychologist training requirements in Ontario may change—and not for the better.
“Modernization” - It is a word that sounds reassuring. It suggests progress, improved access, and thoughtful streamlining.
It implies systems evolving to meet current needs, advancement through incorporating new knowledge, and removing unnecessary barriers…
Not a rollback of training standards or reframing of expertise as something that can be achieved with substantially less education and supervised experience.
And, yet, here we are.
Psychologist Training Reductions: Key Takeaways
Proposed changes to psychologist licensing in Ontario reduce training requirements
The title “psychologist” will no longer reflect consistent training standards
Reduced training requirements will likely increase risk to the public and variability in quality of care
- Misdiagnosis and inappropriate treatment & accommodations are real risks with potentially severe consequences
Access can be improved in meaningful ways that also reduce the risk to the public: through removing financial barriers to those seeking care and those wanting to pursue the advanced education needed to provide competent care
The proposal is not yet finalized. There is time to share your concerns. Write your MPP and the Ontario Minister of Health.
The Situation in Ontario:
Changes to Psychologist Training Standards
Despite strong opposition from both the public and the profession—approximately 90% of nearly 10,000 responses to a public consultation—the College of Psychologists and Behaviour Analysts of Ontario (CPBAO) has requested the Minister of Health approve reduced training and licensing requirements for psychologists.
This comes at a time when mental health concerns are increasingly complex, not less. Over the past several decades, training expectations in psychology have expanded in response to that complexity. As a profession, psychologists have acknowledged advanced training, experience, and specialization benefits people receiving psychological services.
The proposed “modernization” changes move in the opposite direction.
These changes would allow individuals with substantially less formal education and significantly fewer supervised clinical hours to practice independently—while holding the same title and scope of practice as those with far more extensive training.
For years, under free trade rules, the CBPAO has registered a small trickle of clinicians, who are titled ‘psychologists’ in other jurisdictions that have lower bars for credentials (such as Alberta)—many of whom have educational backgrounds and training that would not otherwise meet Ontario’s criteria. The proposed changes will make this small loophole a rule rather than an exception. These new rules have the potential to flood Ontario with applicants for practice who may have fewer hours of supervised practicum experience than most people gain during a full-time summer job.
What Is Changing to Psychologist Licensing Requirements in Ontario?
Historically, master’s-level practitioners in Ontario could register as psychological associates, but only after completing several years of carefully supervised clinical experience following their degree. This model (while not identical to doctoral training) was designed to ensure that master’s level practitioners developed both depth and breadth of competence before practicing independently.
The proposed changes significantly reduce those requirements by removing:
as much as 75% of the hands-on post-degree supervised clinical experience
demonstrated ethical decision making and knowledge of ethics and laws in Ontario relevant to practicing, evaluated previous through a high stakes exam (the exam will become a repeatable online module)
declaration of limits of competence (and vetted designation of competency areas)
At the same time, new master’s level practitioners would be permitted to:
Provide psychotherapy
Communicate diagnoses
Practice independently
Use the title “psychologist”
All while completing substantially fewer hours of supervised clinical training and without the additional years of structured education that characterize doctoral programs.
A Question of Psychologist Training (and of Trust)
Doctoral training in clinical psychology is not simply about research. It involves years of advanced coursework, comprehensive examinations, multiple supervised clinical placements, and a full-time residency. Throughout this process, trainees are repeatedly evaluated for competence across a wide range of clinical scenarios.
This structure exists for a reason. It is designed to ensure that psychologists:
Understand the limits of their competence
Can work with complex and overlapping conditions
Are prepared to make high-stakes clinical decisions responsibly
By contrast, the proposed pathway submitted to the Minister of Health in Ontario reduces both the amount and intensity of training required before independent practice. Which raises a straightforward question:
Does it make sense that practitioners with fewer years of training, fewer supervised hours, and fewer formal evaluations of competency will be licensed to provide the same scope of services?
If competency could reliably be achieved with substantially less training, it is worth asking why this has not already become the standard across accredited programs in North America. Notably, there are currently no master’s-only clinical psychology programs accredited by the Canadian Psychological Association or the American Psychological Association—organizations that exist to define training standards grounded in evidence.
Education and supervised experience help practitioners learn skills required to practice competently and to learn the limits of their competence. As can be gleaned from the profiles of various MA-level practitioners transferring from other jurisdictions (see CPBAO’s member registration), many MA-level transfers list scopes of practice that tend to be broader than most doctoral psychologists—raising concerns about less trained practitioners’ understanding of their limits of competency.
Psychology Access through Modernization or Regression?
Expanding access to care is an important and necessary goal. However, increasing the number of providers is not the same as improving access—particularly when access issues are driven by systemic factors, such as underfunding, limited insurance coverage, and insufficient investment in publicly funded psychological services.
Ontario has already seen a substantial increase in the number of registered psychotherapists in recent years. This has not meaningfully reduced the cost of private services or eliminated barriers to access—they still charge the same inaccessible private-pay rates.
The idea that access challenges will be solved by introducing more practitioners with less training is, at best, optimistic. At worst, it recklessly risks creating a different problem: variability in the quality of care provided to some who are at their most vulnerable.
The “Self-Interested” Clinical Psychologist Argument
Some have suggested that psychologists opposing these changes are motivated primarily by “elitist” and “guild protection” self-interest—protecting their title, their status, and their fees. There is a kernel of truth here: maintaining high standards does benefit those who have already met them.
That, however, is not the full picture.
For the public, the title “psychologist” has come to signify something meaningful. It suggests a high level of training, competence, and accountability. It implies that the professional has been rigorously evaluated and is prepared to work independently with people who have complex mental health concerns.
When training pathways become more variable, that title is no longer a clear indicator of skill and expertise. And when that happens, the burden shifts from the regulator of the profession to those people who are seeking supports.
Individuals seeking care must then determine for themselves:
Who is qualified
What training matters
What level of experience is sufficient
That is not a trivial task—particularly for people already navigating mental health challenges.
A Note on Psychology Ethics and Practice
Psychologists are not immune to self-interest. No profession is.
It is also true that many psychologists:
Provide reduced-fee or pro bono services
Supervise and train future clinicians, often with no or limited compensation
Participate in regulatory processes to uphold professional standards
These are not fringe activities—they are embedded in our ethical framework as a profession (see Canadian Ethics Code for Psychologists, Standard IV.12). Client care, not profit maximization, tends to be the organizing principle.
Ours is not a profession known for excess. I don’t drive a luxury car, and I’m not guarding a dragon’s hoard. Like many colleagues, I absorb unpaid time because thorough, careful work matters—especially in assessment, where accuracy can shape years of treatment, accommodations, and outcomes.
Why Psychologist Training Matters
Mental health care is inherently complex. Misdiagnosis is not a minor inconvenience—it can be extraordinarily harmful. Misdiagnosis can alter treatment trajectories, delay effective care, and shape how individuals understand themselves. Correcting those errors is often difficult, both for the professional and for the person who has received inaccurate diagnoses. Moreover, it is time consuming and costly for individuals and for institutions—if more people are provided with inappropriate diagnoses and accommodations, schools, universities, and employers may be overburdened with obligations to accommodate people who do not need supports and those people who truly do need supports might not receive the full extent of what is required. Further, for youth in particular, delays in receiving the right care can have severe consequences: More children will have more time spent without appropriate supports in place, sometimes spanning multiple grades or school transitions, during developmentally sensitive periods when they might benefit most.
Although high quality and well supervised training does not eliminate risks, it reduces them. Across healthcare fields, greater supervised experience is consistently associated with fewer errors and better outcomes. There is a reason training pathways are long, structured, and carefully monitored.
The primary purpose of a regulatory college is to protect the public. Having evidence-based high training standards are one very important facet of how the public is protected from care that has the potential to hurt more than it helps.
Keeping necessary high training standards creates competent, ethical psychologists. No more than any other highly trained professional (e.g., physicians, psychiatrists, surgeons, optometrists, etc.), psychologist training does not pose an exceptional barrier to individuals who want to access psychological services or to those who are capable of becoming skilled psychologists. Rather, the barriers most problematic and most worthy of removal are those that prevent people from having publicly-funded access to services (i.e., coverage under universal healthcare or having needs-based subsidized care) and those that prevent highly capable individuals from pursuing years of advanced training to become psychologists (i.e., insufficient funding for training programs, reliance on supervision models where supervisors work pro-bono or receive token compensation).
A Final Thought on Reduced Psychologist Training Requirements in Ontario
Access matters. Expanding access to mental health care is essential, but not all solutions are equivalent. If you do not have private insurance and can’t afford to pay out of pocket, what does it matter if there are 100 or 10,000 psychologists in private practice? Lowering training standards while maintaining the same title and scope of practice is not a trivial technical adjustment and it is not modernization—it is a substantive change with real implications for lowered quality, trust, and public safety. It is not modernization. It is a risky regression.
Psychologists may lose something under these proposed changes—but the public stands to lose more. Accusations that psychologists’ opposition to ‘modernization’ is self-serving are flatly wrong. Psychologists stand to gain very little by preventing the proposed rollback of training while the public stands to lose very much. The more relevant question is: Who stands to benefit from the proposed reductions in expertise?
What Can You Do to Help Fight Risky Changes to Ontario Psychologist Training?
Please write your MPP and the Minister of Health, Sylvia Jones, to tell them you oppose these proposed changes.
Ontario needs more highly qualified psychologists, more funding to train them and more funding for people to see them for services; Ontario does not need more people who can simply call themselves a psychologist without all the learning, training, and skill required to do the job well.
