RCI registration for counselling psychologists: who can register, and who falls under NCAHP instead

Last updated 25 October 2026. Every claim below was read on the Rehabilitation Council of India's own site or in the Act and its memoranda, on that date. This is an explainer, not legal advice. Spotted a mistake? Write to hello@unifiedself.in and we will fix it and say so.

On this page

1. What RCI is, and what its register is
2. The sixteen categories
3. Who can register as a clinical psychologist
4. What registration means in law
5. How the register works since October 2025
6. If you are a counselling psychologist
7. How to check a registration
8. Questions people ask
9. What is still unsettled
10. Sources

What RCI is, and what its register is

The Rehabilitation Council of India is a statutory body under the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, created by the Rehabilitation Council of India Act, 1992. The Act regulates "rehabilitation professionals" working with persons with disabilities. Its definition lists the professions by name, and clinical psychologists are the second entry:

"rehabilitation professionals" means— … (ii) clinical psychologists; … (vi) vocational counsellors, employment officers and placement officers dealing with handicapped;

Rehabilitation Council of India Act, 1992, section 2(1)(n), as amended in 2000.

The register is the Central Rehabilitation Register, usually called the CRR. Section 23 makes it the Member-Secretary's duty "to keep and maintain the Register", and section 19 is the enrolment provision: the Member-Secretary "may, on receipt of an application made by any person in the prescribed manner enter his name in the Register provided that the Member-Secretary is satisfied that such person possesses the recognised rehabilitation qualification". The whole scheme turns on that phrase. A recognised rehabilitation qualification is one RCI itself has approved, for a category RCI itself lists.

The sixteen categories

RCI's page on the categories registered under section 19 lists sixteen, in this order. We reproduce the psychology and counselling entries exactly as written; the others are audiology, special education, prosthetics, rehabilitation engineering and similar fields.

• "Clinical Psychologists"
• "Vocational Counsellors, Employment Officers and Placement Officers dealing with handicapped"
• "Rehabilitation Psychologists"
• "Rehabilitation Social Workers"
• "Rehabilitation Counsellors/Administrators"

Three things follow. First, there is no category called counselling psychologist, counsellor or psychotherapist. The two counselling entries are rehabilitation-specific: vocational counselling for persons with disabilities, and rehabilitation counselling, which has its own RCI diploma route. Second, the public search of the register uses the same list, with codes such as 02 for Clinical Psychologist, 09 for Rehabilitation Psychologist and 14 for Rehabilitation Counsellors/Administrators; there is nothing to select for a counselling psychologist. Third, on 25 October 2026 we searched RCI's circulars back to 2024 and its 2026 psychology syllabi for any notice moving counselling or non-clinical psychologists to another regulator, and found none. The carve-out exists on the NCAHP side, described below.

Who can register as a clinical psychologist

RCI publishes the course list and the syllabus for each route. The entry requirement in each syllabus is what decides whether a given degree leads to the register.

Two changes in the last two years matter for anyone planning a route. The M.Phil is being wound down: RCI's September 2024 notice attaches the University Grants Commission's letter that admissions to the M.Phil in Clinical Psychology may continue "till 2025-26 academic session only", after which the M.Clin.Psy and Psy.D are the paths. And on 3 May 2026 RCI renamed its two-year programmes: the M.A. in Clinical Psychology became the "Master in Clinical Psychology (M.Clin. Psy)" and the M.A. in Rehabilitation Psychology became the "Master in Rehabilitation Psychology (M.Rehab. Psy)". Transcripts and job advertisements will carry both names for a while.

Rehabilitation Psychologist is the other psychology category, reached through RCI's rehabilitation psychology programmes. It is not a back door for counselling psychologists: the public search's qualification filter for that category lists general psychology degrees, but a search filter is not an eligibility rule, and the enrolment test in section 19 is the recognised qualification for that category.

What registration means in law

Section 13 of the Act gives the register its teeth. Sub-section (2) reserves four things to enrolled professionals: holding office as a rehabilitation professional in government or local-authority institutions, practising "as rehabilitation professional anywhere in India", signing certificates that a law requires a rehabilitation professional to sign, and giving expert evidence in court on disability matters. Sub-section (3) is the penalty:

Any person who acts in contravention of any provision of sub-section (2) shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to one year, or with fine which may extend to one thousand rupees, or with both.

Rehabilitation Council of India Act, 1992, section 13(3).

Read the scope carefully. The offence is practising as a rehabilitation professional, which the Act defines by its list of professions, clinical psychologist among them. Calling yourself a clinical psychologist, or doing the work RCI's clinical psychologists do, without being on the register is what the section catches. It does not make counselling or psychotherapy by a non-clinical psychologist an offence, because those are not categories the Act regulates. The separate question of who may use the words psychologist, counsellor or therapist in India is governed by the NCAHP Act, whose title protection is not yet in force; the NCAHP guide covers it.

Registration also connects to the Mental Healthcare Act, 2017. That Act's own definition of a psychologist starts with "a person having a recognised qualification in Clinical Psychology from an institution approved and recognised, by the Rehabilitation Council of India", and it tells each State Mental Health Authority to "register clinical psychologists, mental health nurses and psychiatric social workers in the State to work as mental health professionals". So an RCI-registered clinical psychologist can also be a "mental health professional" under that Act; a counselling psychologist, on the Act's wording, cannot.

How the register works since October 2025

On 14 October 2025 RCI issued an office memorandum, F.No. 7-8/CRR/RCI, "Revision and simplification of CRR norms and guidelines", which "supersedes all previous orders/circulars/public notices issued in this regard". Together with the norms page on RCI's site, which carries the same date, it sets the current rules:

• Everything is online. "All the process of registration is online", through the portal at rciregistration.nic.in. Certificates are uploaded, each file under 200 KB, and "No need to send the hardcopies".
• Register within six months. Those qualified "shall register with the Council within 6 months from the date of completion of an approved course".
• No fee for the registration itself. The memorandum's first point is "No Fee for fresh CRR number or Renewal or Add-on Qualification". Students register for a pre-CRR number early in the course "at a nominal fee of Rs 100/-"; a student who missed that window in the first three months pays "Rs. 500/-" on applying for the CRR. A Good Standing Certificate costs ₹1,500.
• Seven years, not five. "The registration/renewal will be valid for seven (7) years from the date of registration/renewal of CRR." Anyone holding a five-year registration on the day of the memorandum got "automatic extension of two years, with accumulated CRE points staying intact".
• Renewal is automatic if the points are there. Renewal "will be done automatically between 90 days to date of expiry to the date of the expiry of registration, provided the candidate has 100 CRE points or more in their account." The points are then spent: "The CRE points will not be carried forward for next renewal."
• Lapses cost money and time. A registration that expired without the points attracts "Rs 100 per month of delay, subject to maximum penalty of Rs 5000/-", the 100 points are still required, and the gap does not count as registered time.
• After 65 renewal is free even without points, and runs ten years at a time.

CRE stands for Continuing Rehabilitation Education. Points are earned at RCI-approved programmes and reported by the organiser; national-level participation earns one point an hour with a cap of six points a day, and "Participants will be able to see their CRE points on their registration dashboard". The number you need is 100 per seven-year cycle. Because the organiser reports the points, supervision hours, reading and workshops outside RCI's approval do not count.

If you are a counselling psychologist

Most of the people who search for this page are counselling psychologists with an M.A. or M.Sc. in psychology, often a diploma in counselling, and no RCI-recognised clinical qualification. For them the position in October 2026 is clear, if uncomfortable.

• RCI cannot register you. There is no category for your profession, and section 19 only admits recognised rehabilitation qualifications. A portal that offers you an "RCI counselling registration" for a fee is not RCI.
• RCI cannot require you to register. Section 13 binds rehabilitation professionals as the Act defines them. You are outside the definition.
• Your register is NCAHP's. The National Commission for Allied and Healthcare Professions Act, 2021 lists, under its Behavioural Health Sciences category, the profession "Psychologist (Except Clinical Psychologist covered under RCI for PWD)". That bracket is the whole division of labour: RCI keeps clinical psychologists, NCAHP takes the rest. The registration regulations for that register were notified in September 2026, and no State Council has opened for applications. The NCAHP guide explains what to do while you wait, and how to recognise the fake councils that have appeared in the gap.

Whichever register you are on, or waiting for, the record you will eventually need is the same: the number, the body, the date registered, the renewal date, and a log of continuing education with evidence. UnifiedSelf's Registration tab keeps exactly that, as a record you control rather than a reminder system, since no NCAHP deadline exists yet to remind anyone about.

How to check a registration

The register is public. RCI's "CRR Register" link opens a search page with two options: by CRR number or name, and by state, category and qualification. A client, an employer or a colleague can confirm a clinical psychologist's registration there in a minute, which is also the fastest way to see that a self-described "RCI-registered counsellor" with a general psychology degree does not appear. The search is at rciregistration.nic.in under "Select Search".

Questions people ask

What is still unsettled

• When any State Council under the NCAHP Act will begin registering the psychologists RCI does not cover, and what it will ask of people already in practice. See the NCAHP guide's open questions.
• How the M.Phil phase-out will treat students admitted in its final sessions, and how employers will read the new M.Clin.Psy against the M.Phil for posts that specify the latter.
• Whether RCI will publish anything on the boundary with NCAHP. As of 25 October 2026 its site has no document that mentions the Commission.

Sources

Everything quoted on this page was read at its source on 25 October 2026. Government links change often, so we give the document names as well.

1. Rehabilitation Council of India Act, 1992, consolidated text with the 2000 amendment: sections 2(1)(l), 2(1)(n), 13, 19 and 23. rehabcouncil.nic.in/act-1992-eng.
2. RCI, "Categories u/s 19". rehabcouncil.nic.in/categories-u-s-19.
3. RCI, "Norms & Guidelines" for the Central Rehabilitation Register, effective 14 October 2025. rehabcouncil.nic.in/norms-guidelines; CRE norms at rehabcouncil.nic.in/norms-guidelines-cre.
4. RCI Office Memorandum F.No. 7-8/CRR/RCI, "Revision and simplification of CRR norms and guidelines", 14 October 2025, listed under Circulars and Notifications. rehabcouncil.nic.in.
5. RCI course list, "Regular Mode", and the syllabi for the M.Phil in Clinical Psychology, Psy.D in Clinical Psychology, Professional Diploma in Clinical Psychology, Master in Clinical Psychology (effective 2024-25) and Bachelor in Clinical Psychology. rehabcouncil.nic.in/regular-mode.
6. RCI Office Memorandum F.No. RCI-12022/1/2022, 3 May 2026, renaming the M.A. programmes in Clinical and Rehabilitation Psychology.
7. RCI public notice of September 2024 on the M.Phil in Clinical Psychology, with the University Grants Commission's letter on admissions "till 2025-26 academic session only".
8. Central Rehabilitation Register public search. rciregistration.nic.in.
9. National Commission for Allied and Healthcare Professions Act, 2021, Schedule, Category 7, Behavioural Health Sciences: "Psychologist (Except Clinical Psychologist covered under RCI for PWD)".
10. Mental Healthcare Act, 2017: section 2(1) definition of "psychologist" and section 55(1)(d). Gazette of India, Extraordinary, Part II, Section 1, 7 April 2017.