A National Survey of Korean Licensed Clinical Psychologists in 2018: Characteristics and Professional Activities

This study aimed to obtain information on the demographic characteristics, employment settings, professional activities, theoretical orientation, and career satisfaction of Korean licensed clinical psychologists. A survey link was sent to the members of the Korean Society of Clinical Psychology through e-mail and text message. Of 1,357 licensed clinical psychologists 600 (44.2%) responded to the survey. The results show that the percentage of women has continually increased since 2007, from 75.3% to 87.0%, and the percentage of clinical psychologists with doctoral degrees has decreased since 2007, from 42.7% to 22.2%. The percentage of full-time clinical psychologists was 67.3% and various hospitals and clinics were the most common employment setting for clinical psychologists. The next-most-frequent sites for employment were private practice (14.5%), universities (13.5%), and public and national institutes (10.0%). The majority identified themselves as psychotherapists (40.2%) or psychological assessment professional (39.5%), followed by academicians (12.2%). The numbers of clinical psychologists involved in psychotherapy and assessment for more than half of their time were 160 (26.7%) and 191 (31.8%), respectively. The majority (80.9%) endorsed more than two theoretical orientations, cognitive behavioral, or behavioral orientation was the most-popular primary orientation (63.2%) and psychoanalysis or psychodynamic orientation was the nextmost-popular one (18.8%). The mean scores for satisfaction with career, graduate training, and internship were 3.29, 3.21, and 2.83, respectively, showing significant differences. Finally, implications and future prospects for clinical psychology in Korea are discussed.