New Zealand Psychologists Board

Aug 11th, 2021

Jun 5th, 2021

Don't Apply in NZ Psychologist Board. This board is just extorting money from fleeing nationals. The NZ is soon to become another Australia in Job discrimination, which we in last decade in Australia, the hate against Asian. I am sad. But I have no choice. EU is better to live and work both.
May 5th, 2021

I am a master's level licensed psychotherapist / professional clinical counselor from the USA. NZPB advertised qualifications for a NZ psychologist registration, which I met (Masters in psychology + 1500 clinical supervised hours of counseling/psychotherapy provided). In fact, I not only had the masters in Psychology, but also had double the number of clinical hours (3000), and 2 professional licenses to practice counseling / psychotherapy in my home country. So I decided to pay the application fee of $595 NZD and do substantial work collecting and certifying documents including police records, which also cost me and required significant travelling time. I received 3 stellar character reference letters from other licensed clinicians. The NZPB took 5 months to inform me in 3 sentences that I was denied, with no explanation other than that my title was different in my home country. But I was not applying to be a psychologist in my country (which requires that psychologists have a PhD). I was applying to be one in New Zealand, which only requires a masters. Essentially they were holding me to a higher standard than their own citizens, who only have to meet NZ standards, not some other country's standards on top of that. I appealed, pointing this out to two of their representatives, and during that meeting they said they would think on it some more. 7 months after that I got an email affirming their original decision. Again, no reason given for not qualifying in New Zealand, just a "we have determined that you don't qualify" statement, again citing my countrys requirements which are different than theirs. So the entire rejection process took $595 NZD plus an entire YEAR (Sept 2019 to Sept 2020). Im writing all this to inform anyone looking at registration via NZPB. Maybe it will be different for you, but if my experience with them is any indication, they very politely take excessive amounts of time to reject applicants with a 2-3 sentence declaration as opposed to a valid explanation that includes detail or logical reasons. Their only reason given was about home country title and they could not state a single missing, specific qualification from my degree or licensure when I spoke with them during my appeal. That is too bad because it reduces competition and thus the quality and availability of registered clinicians. If I had it to do over Id simply become a private counselor or some other title (e.g. coach) that requires no certification in NZ.
May 18th, 2020