The name game

Just because it says psychologist on your business card doesn't mean you can go around giving out advice.

- MARC WILSON

I recently gave a workshop for colleagues and students about working with the media. My opening slide is an email that starts, "Hi Marc. I swear to god, you seem to be the only psychologist in Wellington who speaks to the media..."

This is incorrect in two ways. I funnel a lot of media inquiries to Wellington clinical psychologist Dougal Sutherland these days. And I'm not a "psychologist".

I may teach psychology, publish psychology and supervise people who go on to be psychologists, but in Aotearoa, you need to be registered with the New Zealand Psychologists Registration Board to legally use the title of "psychologist".