Right now in India, there is NO licensing body for counsellors and psychotherapists. If you are trained well through a course in a registered institutes like CCS Academy (Registered with Government of India with GSTIN), you may practice.
Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India has passed Allied Healthcare Professionals Bill in the Parliament of India. When it is implemented in the whole country as an act, counsellors may get their licensing body. However the licensing body is still not set up. When it is set up only, we will come to know the exact eligibility criteria for practicing professionals.
Please note that some organizations/ institutions may ask for a Degree in Psychology to employ counselors. If you want to be employed in such organizations, you may do a Post Graduation Psychology / Counselling from universities like IGNOU or University of Madras in Distance Mode. Our Diploma and certification courses will give you a good base to study the University Courses. So you may consider doing our course first and you can network with your batch mates to join the same university as a group to help each other.
Rehabilitation Council of India (RCI) is the licensing body for Special Educators, Clinical Psychologists, Rehabilitation Psychologists and few other professionals. Counsellors and Psychotherapists are not covered under RCI Act. Hence we did not apply for RCI Recognition for this course.
Source: RTI Response from RCI in 2011 given below,
No RCI registration needed for psychologists/Counsellors unless they are specifically clinical psychologists or rehabilitation psychologists or rehabilitation counselors who work with mentally and/or physically disabled.
“Further, it is to inform you that disability rehabilitation includes continuum of services like prevention, early identification, early intervention and inclusion of persons with disabilities including persons with mental illness. As informed earlier, clinical psychologists, rehabilitation psychologists and vocational counsellors are among the 16 categories of professionals allocated under the RCI Act. However, school psychologists and educational counselors working for non-disabled persons are beyond the purview of the Council. Similarly, sports psychologists, industrial psychologists, para psychologists, experimental psychologists etc. are also not covered under the RCI Act and therefore do not require registration with RCI. The RCI Act, 1992 & RCI (Amendment) Act, 2000, list of recognized universities/institutions, approved training programmes and other details are available on the RCI website” – Excerpt from RTI Response by RCI.
