Too few psychologists for India’s mental-health push, says study

A recent study published in the Indian Journal of Clinical Psychology has drawn attention to a critical bottleneck in India’s mental-health workforce: the country has very few registered clinical psychologists, and an even lesser number actively practising at any given time.

The study was aimed at examining the gaps between Rehabilitation Council of India’s (RCI’s) officially recognised programmes and the qualification of professionals licenced in the Central Rehabilitation Register (CRR) and assessing implications for workforce standards in India.

A descriptive analysis of CRR data was conducted for “Clinical Psychologist” and “Rehabilitation Psychologist” categories. Information on qualifications, registration status (active or not active), and course types was extracted, organised into tables, and summarised using frequencies and percentages.

Amit Kumar Soni of Devi Ahilya University, Indore, who led the analysis, said the figures pointed to deeper governance issues. “The CRR is meant to be the backbone of credential verification and workforce planning. Instead, we see low overall numbers, a significant proportion of professionals marked inactive, and inconsistent documentation linking training qualifications to registration categories,” he said.

The report was co-authored by Mohit Kumar from All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Bhopal, who cautioned against relying on policy declarations alone to expand mental-health services. “If institutions are to strengthen counselling and suicide-prevention systems, the supply of qualified and verifiably licensed professionals must increase. Equally important, the licensing pipeline has to be clean and transparent,” he said.

One in four

The analysis that examined entries for “Clinical Psychologist” in the CRR found that only 2,900 of the 3,890 professionals listed were marked as “Active,” while the remaining 990 were shown as “Not Active”. “This means roughly one in four registered clinical psychologists was not practising at the time of the snapshot,” Dr. Soni said.

For a country of India’s size, an active pool of about 3,000 clinical psychologists is grossly inadequate to meet demand across hospitals, community services, disability and rehabilitation settings, and educational institutions, he pointed out.

Qualification inconsistencies

Beyond the numerical shortfall, the report highlighted inconsistencies in how qualifications are recorded in the CRR. Multiple course labels appear under the same licensure categories, suggesting gaps in equivalence rules, handling of legacy nomenclature, and documentation practices.

Licensure is the public assurance of competence and accountability; inconsistencies in the register undermine both workforce planning and public trust, the authors said.

Supreme Court context

The findings gain added urgency in the wake of recent Supreme Court directions on student mental health and suicide prevention, which have increased pressure on institutions to establish functional mental-health support systems. Such systems require qualified professionals rather than symbolic compliance.

“The CRR snapshot offers a reality check. At a time when mental-health services are expected to scale up rapidly, the register reflects a limited and unevenly managed workforce,” Dr Soni said.

What needs to change

The report outlined three immediate priorities: expanding training capacity by increasing seats and strengthening institutions that produce licensable psychologists; standardising qualification mapping and equivalence rules to ensure transparency; and reducing avoidable inactivity through improved renewal systems, reminders and clearer status information.

“Mental health care and suicide prevention are demanding tasks. Without enough trained psychologists, and without a regulator ensuring a consistent licensing pipeline, India will struggle to meet what its policies – and its courts – now require,” he added.