Is the psychological counselor certificate valuable?

In fact, this issue cannot be generalized. The value of the certificate depends entirely on the purpose of obtaining the certificate and your expectations for it. After all, as early as 2017, the country has canceled the professional qualification examination for psychological counselors. Now all the relevant certificates for psychological counselors that can be tested on the market are essentially training certificates, not professional qualification certificates. This is the premise of discussing all issues.

I have been in contact with a full-time counselor in a higher vocational school who is responsible for student psychological counseling and crisis intervention. Last year, the school was evaluated as a provincial-level standardized psychological counseling station, requiring at least two on-the-job staff to have systematic psychological-related training certificates. It took him more than two months. In preparation for the exam, he obtained a training certificate from the Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Not only did he successfully help the school obtain site qualifications, but he was also appointed as the full-time person in charge of the tutoring station. He received an additional job subsidy of 800 yuan per month. For him, this certificate is even more valuable than many general professional qualification certificates.

But in another scenario, the “gold content” of this certificate may be discounted by more than half. Last month, I met a young girl who had just graduated. I watched a short video and saw an advertisement for "Take the psychological counselor certificate and receive cases at home and earn 20,000 yuan a month." She spent more than 3,000 to get a "senior psychological counselor certificate" issued by an organization that I had never heard of in the industry. She applied for assistant positions in more than a dozen psychological institutions, but didn't even receive a few interview invitations. She cried and said that the certificate was just a piece of paper. In fact, this is just like signing up for a cooking training class and getting a certificate of completion. It does not mean that you can directly go to work as a chef in a five-star hotel, nor does it mean that you will definitely make money by opening a restaurant. The certificate of completion can only prove that you have taken basic courses, and it cannot even prove whether you can hold a spoon safely.

Nowadays, when recruiting people in the industry or when choosing a counselor, such training certificates are not considered as a core reference. People look more at whether you have systematic long-term training experience, how many hours of cases you have accumulated, whether you have fixed individual supervision and group supervision, and whether you have had enough personal experience. These are the hard currency. If you have a relevant professional status, such as a teacher, medical nurse, or social worker, getting a certificate will supplement your professional abilities and can be used when your unit evaluates professional titles and requires qualifications for opening related services. Then the value of this certificate will far exceed the thousands of dollars you spend to get it. But if you have zero foundation and want to make money as a consultant by relying on such a certificate, then I advise you to give up this idea as soon as possible, otherwise you will most likely feel that the money has been wasted.

I have been in this industry for almost 6 years, and I have seen people holding the most basic training certificate, and then spent three or four years learning psychoanalysis from teachers, slowly accumulating cases and now charging 800 an hour. I have also seen people holding so-called "senior psychological counselor" certificates issued by several different institutions, and they can't even handle the emotions of the visitors. In the end, the certificate itself has no gold content, and what adds value to it is always the real stuff you fill in after you get the certificate.