SPR Panel on Psychotherapy: Canada 1 The Psychotherapeutic Professions in Canada

Psychotherapy remains a largely unregulated practice in Canada, but this is changing. As with many other countries, several regulated professions (medicine, psychology, social work) practice psychotherapy, but governments have not until recently attempted to regulate psychotherapy as a profession. Whereas psychiatry and psychology are regulated by statute in every Canadian province, only Quebec regulates counselling (i.e., guidance counselling), with other provinces moving towards statutory regulation. As for “psychotherapy, ” Ontario and Quebec are in the process of developing statutory regulation that protects the title of “psychotherapist ” and attempts to define its practice. In the Ontario Health System Improvements Act 2006, an omnibus bill with numerous changes and additions to the Regulated Health Professions Act 1991 (RHPA), established new professional colleges, among these the College of Psychotherapists and Registered Mental Health Therapists of Ontario (CPRMHT). The 1991 regulation of health practices introduced a series of “authorized acts ” that can be performed only by members of those Colleges that are assigned those acts. Rather than relying on a scope of practice to control access to psychotherapy, the Ontario Psychotherapy Act (Government of Ontario, 2007) provides fo