A psychologist can only engage in activities for which they have the appropriate qualifications and are authorized by law to handle professionally.

But what does this mean in practice?

The university education system is split. If someone only completes the undergraduate program, they will not yet be a psychologist—their degree will state a status of “behavior analyst”. In this case, the person is not entitled to engage in psychological activities and cannot provide counseling. In a master's program, there is an opportunity to focus more on different areas, such as specializations like adult or child clinical psychology, school psychology, organizational psychology, etc. However, these directions do not yet determine the exact competence range of a psychologist, because after the master's degree—we refer to this status as “licensed psychologist”—a series of further training awaits us to expand our knowledge.

In parallel with university education, there is also a possibility to participate in several other types of training, such as method-specific training. These are therapeutic techniques, methodologies, counseling frameworks, perspectives, that a professional can work with during sessions later on. Typically, this involves a two-year commitment, and a series of exams, essays, and case studies must be completed to consider the training fulfilled. However, there are also longer programs; for example, a future couple and family therapist colleague might need to prepare for about 6 years to meet the completion criteria.

After the master's program, a licensed psychologist has the opportunity to participate in further specialist training, which requires another 2-4 years of invested work. Specialist training delves deeper into a particular area, and there are directions in the training repertoire that cannot yet be explored during the master’s program—such as sports psychology, sexual psychology.

When encountering titles such as self-awareness coach/trainer/mentor, psychological assistant, psychologist candidate, psychological consultant, mental coach, etc., be aware that these individuals are NOT psychologists; they have not participated in psychological university education either in Hungary or abroad, and they are not authorized to conduct counseling processes.