Mental health crisis driving huge demand for skilled practitioners
By Iain Gillespie
Robots are not yet replacing mental health professionals, but with artificial intelligence (AI) now being able to personalise treatments and analyse brain scans, psychiatrists know they are on a path of life-long learning.
Psychologists say the same thing, they must keep learning and adapting as technology plays a bigger role across all sectors of the economy. But that’s not the main issue confronting the mental health sector. Currently, there’s a two-tiered crisis in mental health; a disturbing number of Australians needing treatment and a grave shortage of qualified practitioners to deliver it.
Studies show almost half of all Australians will face mental ill-health during their lives, while Australian Psychological Society president Dr Catriona Davis-McCabe warns that a shortage of psychologists is “breaking the mental health system”.
In fact, a severe shortage exists across an entire spectrum of mental health practitioners – from specialist nurses to psychiatrists – meaning those gaining qualifications in the field are guaranteed a lifetime career with a vast range of opportunities.
“You’ll find psychologists in all walks of life,” Davis-McCabe says. “It can be helping to formulate government policy, a campaign to influence Australians to give up smoking, designing a new test to detect mental health or even an online app to help beat anxiety.
“Most big employers and workplaces benefit from having a psychologist to support the wellbeing of their employees. We also see psychologists working in areas like recruitment, elite sport, education, forensic crime detection and pain management.”
It takes at least six years of undergraduate and postgraduate study to become a psychologist with a range specialised courses available, but even an undergraduate diploma can help people working in separate fields to advance their careers.
Dr Catriona Davis-McCabe, Australian Psychological Society president.
“A lot of people leave after the fourth year and go on to lots of different careers,” Davis-MCabe says. “They’re very valued for the skills they’ve learned and the rigorous competencies and standards they’ve developed.
“Continued learning is absolutely key even for fully qualified psychologists. It’s always about learning to provide the best treatment, the best services to our clients.”
Dr Elizabeth Moore, the president of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP), says the current psychiatric workforce meets only 56 per cent of current national demand.
“Psychiatrists are medical doctors who choose to specialise in mental health,” she says. “It takes five to six years to train as a doctor, then after you’ve practiced for two years there’s another five years of speciality training. So, it takes at least 12 years.
“After you’ve done three years of specialty training, you can do what’s known as an advanced certificate in your area of specialisation. That means you can have a specialised sub-specialisation.
“For example, we have psychiatrists looking after mental health legislation or involved in policy and research because without people looking at different ways and models of care and different evidence, we won’t improve the health of our community.
“As with all doctors, life-long learning is really important because things change over time. Medications change, models of care change and your own interests change over time.”
Dr Elizabeth Moore, president of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP).
The critical shortage of mental health professionals extends to mental health nurses, with studies showing Australia is expected to be 60 per cent shy of its required workforce by 2030.
Apart from working in a wide range of direct care areas including hospitals, mental health nurses work in clinical policy, administration, education, management and research roles. They need to complete an undergraduate university degree in nursing and a postgraduate degree specialising in mental health, and there are wide-ranging opportunities for further specialised studies after that.
Organisations representing psychiatrists, psychologists and other mental health professionals are calling for an urgent injection of government funding to increase the flow of qualified practitioners from universities and other training institutions.
People can call themselves counsellors or therapists without any form of qualification, but reputable mental health organisations say it’s vital that people seeking help check first to ensure the practitioner they’re planning to see has had appropriate training.
For instance, counsellors usually require a diploma of counselling through a university or TAFE, and many counsellors choose to complete further qualifications, including a university undergraduate or master’s degree.
Mental health social workers typically need a bachelor of social work undergraduate degree from a university to qualify, and some courses offer a combined master’s degree in social work and psychotherapy.
A university bachelor’s degree in occupational therapy is required to become a qualified mental health occupational therapist – and then there are less common areas like psychoanalysis, the field founded by Sigmund Freud.
Qualified psychoanalysts require a minimum of five years’ training through a body like the Australian Psychoanalytical Association, and a university undergraduate degree is usually required for entrance to the courses.
More from Campus, our higher education hub
Which degrees will lead to the highest pay packets?
Six months ago these HSC students picked their degrees. Did they make the right choice?
Where to start when you don’t know what career you want
Feeling overwhelmed by uni applications? Here’s what year 12 students need to know