Cheong, Moonjoo1·Kim, Hyekyung2
1Assistant Profeesor, Department of Medical Counseling, Wonkwang University, Jeollabuk-do, Republic of Korea
2Counselor, Gasan Psychological Counseling Office, LG Electronics, Seoul, Republic of Korea
Correspondence to Kim, Hye-Kyung, E-mail: rosehk@hanmail.net
Volume 34, Pages 71-85, August 2025.
Journal of Meditation Based Psychological Counseling 2025, 34, 71-85. https://doi.org/10.12972/mpca.2025.34.6
Received on August 08, 2025, Revised on August 30, 2025, Accepted on August 30, 2025, Published on August 31, 2025.
Copyright © 2025 Meditation based Psychological Counseling Association.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0).
This study compares two bills before Korea’s 22nd National Assembly—Lee Gae-ho’s Professional Counselor Bill and Nam In-soon & Kim Ye-ji’s Psychologist and Counselor Bill—across four dimensions: credentialing, scope of practice, quality management, and legal enforceability. The Lee bill creates a single “Professional Psychological Counselor” credential that covers integrative fields such as meditation and art therapy, separates evaluation, licensing, and examinations into a multi-layered oversight system, and sets detailed rules for counseling-center operation. In contrast, the Nam–Kim bill splits the profession into “Psychologist” and “Counselor,” centralizes all functions in one agency, and provides few safeguards for center operations, reducing enforceability. Effective legislation should put public safety and well-being ahead of protecting specific guilds, formally recognize diverse specialties, implement multi-tiered quality controls, and balance strong consumer protection with healthy market development. This approach will build a reliable counseling ecosystem and a solid legal foundation for safe, trustworthy services.
Psychological Counseling Legislation, Mental Health, Specialized Domains, Comparative Legislative Analysis, Meditation-based Psychological Counseling