Psychiatrists and psychologists advertise under the same National Law framework as other registered health practitioners, with extra care needed because the audience may include people who are unwell, in distress, or vulnerable to pressure. This guide covers scope-of-practice and title protection, the testimonial ban, claims that create unreasonable expectations, and what extra care looks like in practice.
Title protection and scope of practice
"Psychiatrist" and "psychologist" are protected titles under the National Law, restricted to practitioners registered with the relevant board through Ahpra. Advertising must not imply a practitioner holds a registration or qualification they do not hold, and must not blur the distinction between professions with different scopes of practice. A psychiatrist is a medical doctor who can diagnose, prescribe medication and manage complex treatment plans; a psychologist provides assessment and therapy within a different scope and, in most cases, cannot prescribe. Marketing copy should describe each professional's actual scope accurately rather than using "mental health expert" language that obscures the distinction, since a person choosing between the two needs to understand which is appropriate for their situation.
This distinction also matters for allied roles working alongside psychiatrists and psychologists, such as mental health nurses, accredited mental health social workers and provisional psychologists. Each has a specific scope, and advertising should not present a provisional psychologist as fully registered, or a mental health nurse as able to provide services reserved for a psychiatrist or psychologist. Where a practice employs a mix of registered and provisional practitioners, list each person's actual title and supervision arrangement on the website rather than grouping everyone under a single generic descriptor.
The s.133 testimonial ban
Section 133 of the National Law prohibits advertising that uses testimonials about clinical care provided by a regulated health service. This applies to website content, social media, and third-party reviews that a practice solicits, shares or amplifies. In mental health specifically, this rule matters beyond the general compliance requirement: a testimonial describing someone's diagnosis, treatment or recovery is also highly sensitive personal health information, and publishing it — even with consent — creates both a regulatory and a privacy risk. Practices should not request reviews describing treatment outcomes, should not repost patient comments about their care, and should treat any existing testimonial-style content on their site as something to remove.
Claims that create unreasonable expectations
Advertising must not create an unreasonable expectation of beneficial treatment, which is a distinct requirement from the testimonial ban. This rules out language implying a guaranteed outcome, a fast or complete resolution of a mental health condition, or a claim that a particular assessment or therapy approach works for everyone. It also affects how waitlists and access are described: promising immediate appointments while running a genuine waitlist, or describing a treatment as a "breakthrough" or "cure", both risk creating expectations the service cannot reliably meet. Compare draft copy against a simple test: would a reasonable person reading this expect a specific clinical result the practice cannot actually promise?
This principle also applies to statistics and research references used in marketing. A page that cites a study on treatment effectiveness without naming the source, or that generalises a result from a specific study population to every reader, risks being misleading as well as creating unreasonable expectations. Where research is referenced, name the source plainly — for example, a specific finding published by a named body — rather than an unattributed claim such as "studies show", and avoid presenting a single study's result as a guaranteed outcome for any individual patient.
Why extra care is needed with a potentially vulnerable audience
People searching for psychiatric or psychological care are sometimes doing so during a period of acute distress, and advertising standards expect practitioners to account for this. In practice, this means avoiding urgency-based pressure tactics — countdown offers, artificial scarcity, or copy that plays on fear of an untreated condition getting worse — because these techniques are designed to short-circuit careful decision-making, which is inappropriate when the audience may include people who are unwell. It also means being careful with imagery and language around suicide, self-harm and crisis; advertising is not the appropriate channel for crisis messaging, and any content that could be read by someone in acute distress should point toward appropriate support rather than a booking form.
Inducements and access claims
The National Law restricts advertising inducements — such as discounts or free initial consultations — unless the terms are stated clearly and fully. It also prohibits encouraging indiscriminate use of a health service. This means marketing should not encourage people without a clinical need to book an assessment "just in case", and any offer must state exactly what is included, any conditions, and how long it applies.
A common example in mental health marketing is a discounted or free initial consultation offer intended to reduce the barrier to a first appointment. This can be compliant if the terms are complete and the offer does not pressure someone into an assessment they do not need — for example, stating clearly which service the offer applies to, any eligibility requirement, and the standard fee that applies afterwards. It becomes non-compliant if the terms are vague, if it is presented with urgency language, or if it implies that everyone should book an assessment regardless of whether they have a clinical reason to.
Reviews, social media and referral communication
Social media use by psychiatrists and psychologists should follow the same principles as other advertising: no testimonials, no unreasonable expectation of benefit, and accurate scope-of-practice language. Content explaining what a condition or treatment involves is generally acceptable and useful, provided it does not amount to personal advice to an identifiable individual or share identifiable patient information. Referral communication to GPs and other clinicians should focus on factual intake criteria and availability rather than promotional claims about outcomes.
Putting this into a practical review process
Before publishing any website page, ad, or social post, check it against four questions: does it use protected titles accurately, does it contain or imply a testimonial, does it create an unreasonable expectation of benefit, and does it avoid pressuring a potentially vulnerable reader. Our free AHPRA advertising compliance checker runs a first pass against these principles, and our page on AHPRA-compliant marketing sets out the same framework in more detail. This is the standard we apply across our psychiatrist marketing and healthcare marketing work.
Where this connects to the rest of your marketing
Compliance is not a separate workstream from growth marketing — it shapes how campaigns should be built in the first place. See Google Ads for psychiatrists: campaign structure for how these rules apply to paid search copy, and the Google Business Profile checklist for psychiatrists and psychologists for how the testimonial ban applies to reviews.
