Perhaps you have noticed the many ads lining Toronto’s TTC subways recently, asking “Do you know a psychotherapist?”? (1)

Indeed, there has been much ado about psychotherapy in Ontario lately, especially related to the province’s new College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario (CRPO), established on April 1, 2015, under two provincial Acts (2). CRPO’s mandate is “to regulate Registered Psychotherapists in the public interest, striving to ensure that practitioners are competent, ethical and accountable” (3).

At this time, over 1,700 practitioners — including many Canadian Certified Counsellors (CCCs) — in Ontario have already become registered with this regulatory College (4).

What do these developments mean for someone seeking psychotherapy or counselling? For one thing, because one of the Regulations under these Acts requires having a Quality Assurance (QA) program (5), if you choose to pursue therapy with a Registered Psychotherapist (RP), you will know that his or her regulatory College requires him or her to participate in the type of rigorous QA program described below (6).

Specifically, CRPO’s QA program encourages “the continuing competence and quality improvement of Members”(7). It includes professional development, and “professional self” assessment for all Members, as well as Peer & Practice Assessments in some cases.

The professional development component of the program requires Members to create a “Learning Plan” (6) with goals for professional development, and to record and describe which acceptable activities were pursued to meet those goals. My understating is that the specific details of these requirements have not yet been finalized, but I imagine that a goal example might be “maintain and sharpen competence in providing Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)” and that an acceptable supporting activity example might then be “attend a CBT seminar.”
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