In New Zealand, Psychologists fall under the New Zealand Psychological Society and have a code of ethics to adhere by. |
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Psychologists should not be confused with Psychiatrists who are doctors who specialise in psychiatry. Psychiatrists can prescribe drugs to assist patients, whereas psychologists cannot and use other methods to assist people.
All Registered Psychologists, no matter the above specialisation fall under the Psychologists Code of Ethics and the Health and Practictioners Competence Assurance Act 2003.
The Health and Practitioners Competence Assurance Act provides a framework for the regulation of health practitioners in order to protect the public where there is a risk of harm from the practice of the profession.
Industrial / Organisational Psychology
The discipline of Industrial and Organizational Psychology applies the psychology of individuals and groups in organisations and the workplace.
I/O psychologists are trained in the scientist-practitioner model, meaning they should apply scientifically proven approaches to the practice of psychology within organisations. A key part of an I/O Psychology degree is learning about statistics and research methods.
Major Topics in I/O Psychology include:
- Employee Testing
- Leadership and coaching
- Workplace design
- Workplace diversity
- Workplace performance
- Employee motivation & engagement
- Stress and employee well-being
- Research methods
- Organisational behaviour
- Groups and teams
- Organisational justice
- Ethics
What do you need to do to become a Registered Psychologist ~ Specialising In I/O Psychology?
- First you need to gain your Bachelor and Masters in Psychology, which you need prior to being able to register as a Psychologist, you need to do a minimum of 5 years of full time University study.
- On top of this, you have another years supervision to gain Registration where you are under the training of other psychologists and
experts, where you learn, study and submit assignments while working in the organisational psychology field, and then have an end of year oral exam to pass! - In addition, Psychologists also have to pay for and go to the same training programmes as non-psychologists on certain tools they may want to use, as required by the test makers of these tools.
- If you would want a registered builder to build the house over your head, why would you let anyone not trained or registered in Psychology inside your head? It seems a no-brainer, no pun intended.
- Like any other profession where there is a code of practice, those who operate without the training or registration are not at risk if they advise your poorly, however those like us, under the code are at risk.
Restricted Assessment Tools that only Psychologists can Use
There are some very good assessment tools that are restricted to people who have extensive psychological training and are Registered Psychologists due to their complex nature.
The reason for this is that they would potentially be dangerous in the hands of non-psychologists who lack the training and ethical responsibilities to use these tools appropriately.
These tools are more in-depth knowledge about psychometrics in order to interpret them correctly.
Due to their complexity these tools can provide psychologists with more robust and indepth information about people and their preferences than some non expert tools that anyone can be trained in.
We recommend the Californian Psychological Inventory (CPI) as one of these tools which can only be used by those with advanced psychological training. Read more about the CPI 