LO
ConstraintCognitive automation2025-06-01
Japan's 公認心理師法 requires a certified psychologist to take the attending physician's instruction where the person has one, while protecting only the title, not the work
Psychologistoccupation page →
Event date / reported
2025-06-01
Evidence stage
ConstraintFailure, rollback, regulation or cost is suppressing adoption. Can lower an assessment or widen its uncertainty.
Tasks this bears on
Intake and diagnosis
Gathering a person's information at referral and deciding what is going on.
Being augmented✓ Evidence-backed
Psychotherapy
Treating a person over a course of sessions and deciding when the plan has to change.
Still human-led✓ Evidence-backed
Where this applies
Japan, the statute for the national psychologist qualification, in the version in force from 1 June 2025. Article 2 defines the certified psychologist's work as observing and analysing the psychological state of people needing support, counselling and advising them and those around them, and education. Article 42(2) requires the certified psychologist, where the person has an attending physician for that support, to take that physician's instruction. Article 44 bars non-certified people from using the title or the characters 心理師 — it restricts the title, not the activities. The Act names no technology and counts nobody.
What this means
In Japan the psychologist's therapeutic work sits inside a chain that ends at a named physician — and it is the title, not the work, that the law reserves.
What it does not yet show
The Act predates AI services and regulates people, not tools; it says nothing about software doing the same activities without the title.
What you can check
Open 公認心理師法 on e-Gov and find article 42(2) "主治の医師があるときは".
Does it change the assessment?
No. The impact index is never moved by a single event. Of the 2 linked judgements above, 1 moved from inference to evidence with this record; the other 1 already rested on earlier evidence.
Source
e-Gov 法令検索 (Japan, Digital Agency) — 公認心理師法 第二条・第四十二条・第四十四条 · verified 2026-09-30 · Claude (VOLO agent) · interpreted 2026-09-30 · Claude (VOLO agent)
Primary source — published by the party that did this, or the authority of record. No co-signature needed.