Mental Health Licensing & Regulation in South Korea: 2026 Guide

If you are choosing a mental-health practitioner in South Korea, or supporting someone through treatment, it helps to know that the state issues a formal qualification in this field. It also helps to know what that qualification covers, and what rights the law gives a person receiving care. This guide sets out both, drawing on the English translation of the governing Act. The Korean Law Information Center publishes that text as a reference translation without legal force, so the wording quoted here is a guide to the law and not the operative legal text.

How mental-health care is regulated in South Korea, in short

The governing statute is the Act on the Improvement of Mental Health and the Support for Welfare Services for Mental Patients. For this guide, two parts of the Act matter. It creates a state-issued professional qualification, and it sets out the rights of people who receive mental-health care.

The Act describes its own purpose widely. It aims to improve public mental health and to better the lives of mentally ill persons as human beings. The means it names are prevention, medical treatment, rehabilitation, welfare, the guarantee of rights, and an environment friendly to mental health.¹

The ministry responsible throughout is the Ministry of Health and Welfare.

The qualification the state issues

The mental health specialist qualification is issued by the Minister of Health and Welfare. It goes to a person who has expertise and skills in mental health, and who trained at an institution prescribed by ministerial Decree.²

Two things follow from that wording. The qualification is issued by a minister, not by a private association, and the training route is prescribed rather than chosen freely by the trainee. Both matter when you are trying to judge whether a practitioner's credential means anything.

The four kinds of mental health specialist

The Act then divides the qualification by specialised field, into four kinds of specialist. The first is the mental health clinical psychologist. The others are the mental health nurse, the mental health social welfare worker, and the mental health occupational therapist.²

The provision classifying mental health specialists into those specialized fields was itself amended on 7 April 2020.²

If you are looking for talking therapy or psychological assessment, the mental health clinical psychologist is the field in that list that names psychology. Article 17 classifies the four fields but does not set out what each may do, and psychiatrists are licensed separately under the Medical Service Act, covered below. It is worth asking for the specialist title directly, because a general description such as counsellor does not tell you whether the person holds the statutory qualification at all.

Continuing training after qualification

The Act also provides for training after qualification. The Minister of Health and Welfare may run continuing training programmes intended to improve the quality of mental health specialists.²

Delivery of that training can be delegated. The Minister may entrust those programmes to schools under the Higher Education Act, or to specialised institutions prescribed by Presidential Decree.² Both limbs are permissive: the Minister may conduct the programmes, and may entrust them. Within Article 17 continuing training is a power given to the Minister rather than a duty placed on the individual specialist.

What the qualification protects you from

A mental health specialist may not let another person use their name to perform the specialist's duties, and may not lend their qualification certificate to anyone.²

The prohibition runs in both directions. A person who does not hold the qualification may not use the title, may not borrow someone else's certificate, and may not help anyone else do either of those things.²

The Minister of Health and Welfare may revoke a specialist's qualification, or order it suspended for a fixed period of up to six months,² in the circumstances the Act lists.

The title is not merely a description a practitioner adopts. It is a state-issued qualification, and borrowing or lending it is expressly unlawful.

Psychiatrists are licensed doctors

A psychiatrist in South Korea is licensed under a different statute, the Medical Service Act. That Act defines who counts as a medical person, and the definition turns on a licence.

The definition covers five roles: medical doctor, dentist, oriental medical doctor, midwife and nurse. What unites them is a licence granted by the Minister of Health and Welfare.³ So the same minister stands behind both the medical licence and the mental health specialist qualification.

The Act also states what a doctor is for. A medical doctor's mission, in its words, is to administer treatment and to give guidance on health.³ That is a statement of mission rather than the source of the authority to practise; the definition in Article 2(1) turns on holding a licence.

So that patients and their guardians know the status of the people treating them, the head of a medical institution must instruct and supervise medical persons to wear name tags inside the institution.³

If you are unsure who is in the room, the name-tag requirement is the rule that applies. That duty is written for medical persons, the five roles listed above. It does not by its terms reach a practitioner whose only credential is the mental health specialist qualification.

How to check a practitioner

Start with the state qualification, because it is the one the law creates. Ask whether the practitioner holds the mental health specialist qualification, and in which of the four fields.

Then look at the association certificates. The Korean Psychological Association issues its own certificates, and it lists them publicly under 심리학 자격증 소개,⁴ its introduction to psychology certificates.

The association sets out what those certificates are. Its own consumer notice records that the eleven qualifications listed there, the association's own 임상심리전문가 certificate among them, are 민간자격, private qualifications registered under the Framework Act on Qualifications, and not accredited by the state. The Korean Psychological Association points readers to the national private-qualification service at www.pqi.or.kr⁴ for how that registration system works.

The association also marks the boundary from the other side. It states that the 임상심리사 certificates issued by the Ministry of Health and Welfare and by HRD Korea are not association certificates,⁴ and that enquiries about those belong to those bodies. 임상심리사 is therefore a different credential from the association's own 임상심리전문가, and it comes from different bodies.

So more than one credential is in circulation here, and a practitioner may hold any of them. All three are real credentials from three different issuers, and they do not carry equal weight. Ask which of the three is being offered.

The Korean Psychological Association also runs a public check, 자격증 발급여부 확인, confirming whether one of its certificates was actually issued.⁴ If a practitioner cites an association certificate, that is where its issuance can be confirmed.

Your rights if you or a family member receives care

The Act sets out fundamental concepts that apply to everyone. Every citizen has the right to be protected from mental diseases,¹ which frames mental health as a public entitlement rather than a private misfortune.

The Act's English translation uses the phrase mentally ill persons throughout, and the sentences drawn from it on this page keep its wording rather than ours. Every mentally ill person is to be guaranteed human dignity and value, and has the right to optimum medical treatment. The Act also states that no mentally ill person is to face unfair discrimination on account of mental illness.¹

The Act singles out children and young people. Every mentally ill minor has the right to special medical treatment, care and education,¹ so a young person's needs are treated as distinct rather than as a smaller version of an adult's.

The Act is also clear about where care should happen. To keep any hospitalisation or admission as short as possible, preferential consideration is to be given to treating people within their local communities. It further recommends that the person's own intention be respected in decisions about hospitalisation or admission.¹

If you are supporting someone through an admission, those are the provisions you can point to.

Quick reference

Whoever you are seeing, the practical step is the same. Ask which mental health specialist qualification the person holds, and remember that the title carries statutory weight precisely because it can be revoked.

This guide is general information about what these statutes say, not legal or clinical advice on your own situation. For anything that turns on exact wording, work from the Korean text of the Act or take advice in South Korea.

Team TherapyRoute

References

1. [1] Act on the Improvement of Mental Health and the Support for Welfare Services for Mental Patients (Republic of Korea; English translation, Korean Law Information Center) - Articles 1 and 2: the purpose of the Act and its fundamental concepts, including human dignity, the right to optimum medical treatment, freedom from unfair discrimination, and a preference for community treatment with the shortest possible hospitalisation. elaw.klri.re.kr/eng_service/lawView.do.
2. [2] Act on the Improvement of Mental Health and the Support for Welfare Services for Mental Patients (Republic of Korea; English translation published by the Korean Law Information Center / Korea Legislation Research Institute, reference translation without legal force) - Article 17: the Minister of Health and Welfare issues the mental health specialist qualification, which is classified into mental health clinical psychologists, nurses, social welfare workers and occupational therapists; name-lending is prohibited and the qualification may be revoked or suspended. elaw.klri.re.kr/eng_service/lawView.do.
3. [3] Medical Service Act (Republic of Korea; English translation published by the Korean Law Information Center) - Article 2: a medical person means a medical doctor, dentist, oriental medical doctor, midwife or nurse holding a licence granted by the Minister of Health and Welfare, with the medical doctor's mission being to administer medical treatment and provide guidance for health; and the requirement that staff wear name tags so patients know who is treating them. elaw.klri.re.kr/eng_service/lawView.do.
4. [4] Korean Psychological Association (한국심리학회), "심리학 자격증 소개", the association's own list of the certificates it issues, its consumer notice that these 11 qualifications including 임상심리전문가 are 민간자격 (private qualifications registered under the Framework Act on Qualifications) and NOT state-accredited, its statement that the Ministry of Health and Welfare and HRD Korea 임상심리사 certificates are not association certificates, and its public 자격증 발급여부 확인 certificate-issuance check. koreanpsychology.or.kr.