PSYCHOLOGISTS IN GHANA: ANALYSIS OF THE STANDING REGISTER

Abstract

The maiden register of the Ghana Psychological Council published in September 2015 represents the first national official standing register of psychologists in Ghana. Drawing on this maiden register, this paper presents a seminal analysis of the distribution of psychologists in Ghana in terms of categories of specialisation, gender composition, areas of employment, location of practice, and institutions of training. A copy of the gazette of registered psychologists was obtained from the office of the registrar of the Ghana Psychological Council and quantitative content analysis was conducted on the list of registered mainstream psychologists. Among other things, the analysis shows that there are 166 (largely Ghanaian-trained) psychologists categorised into six main subfields in the country. Females represent the majority in terms of gender composition. Colleges/polytechnics/universities are the main areas of employment; the practising locations of 69.9% of the psychologists are in Accra, with no psychologist registered from the Brong-Ahafo and Upper East regions. Despite the challenges with the maiden register of psychologists in Ghana, the register does provide a good database for reflections on the availability, diversity and distribution of psychologists in Ghana.