In Catalonia public psychology is free, and the average wait for a first public psychology appointment is about six months. Care runs through your GP (médico de familia), who refers you on to a mental health centre, and the regional service is CatSalut. Spain has roughly six clinical psychologists per hundred thousand people in the public system, around a third of the European average.
There's no reimbursement to claim either. Spain has no national scheme that pays for sessions with a private psychologist of your choosing, and public treatment happens in public facilities. Private therapy is paid directly to the therapist, and the rate on the profile is what you pay. Some private health insurance policies include a limited number of sessions, which varies by policy.
Spain regulates clinical practice tightly. A psicólogo general sanitario holds a psychology degree plus the Máster en Psicología General Sanitaria, an official postgraduate qualification with supervised clinical placements, and this is what private practice requires. A psicólogo especialista en psicología clínica has taken the PIR route: a competitive national exam followed by four years of hospital residency, which is the qualification for clinical posts inside the public system. Registration with the regional Colegio Oficial de Psicología is compulsory either way, and a private consulting room has to be registered as a health centre. Someone with a psychology degree and neither qualification may work in organisational or educational settings, but not in assessment, diagnosis or treatment.
Where a therapist listed on It's Complicated works as a psychologist, we check their registration with the regional Colegio Oficial de Psicología before they appear. Beyond that, the qualification to look for on a profile is the Máster en Psicología General Sanitaria, or the clinical specialism.
