Denmark subsidises psychologist sessions, and qualifying depends on what has happened to you. There are eleven referral categories, and most of them describe an event: bereavement, an accident, robbery or assault, a serious illness in yourself or someone close to you, an attempted suicide. Two of the eleven are diagnostic rather than event-based, covering mild to moderate depression and mild to moderate anxiety, including OCD, from the age of 18.
If you fall into one of the eleven, your GP (egen læge) writes a referral, and it covers 12 sessions. The region pays 60% and you pay the remaining 40%, which currently works out at about DKK 482 for a first session and DKK 402 for each one after it. People aged 18 to 24 referred for mild to moderate depression or anxiety pay nothing at all, which has been permanent since 2022 and hasn't been widened to other ages.
Relationship difficulties aren't one of the eleven categories, so couples work in Copenhagen is paid for privately. Neither is a general sense of being stuck, or stress that hasn't been given a diagnosis. The scheme is also capped, so even when you qualify there's a wait, usually measured in months rather than weeks.
There's no referral and no category to fit into if you pay privately. On It's Complicated you choose the therapist and arrange it with them directly, which is what most people do when what they're dealing with isn't on the list, or when waiting months isn't realistic.
Psykolog is a protected title. Until the end of 2025 psychologists were regulated under a law of their own; from January 2026 they sit under the same authorisation system as other health professionals, run by the Danish Patient Safety Authority, and you can look anyone up in its register. You'll still see "autoriseret psykolog" used widely, which now describes the old framework rather than the current one. A psykiater is a medical doctor who can prescribe.
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