This paper provides a brief overview of the current status of Japanese school counselors certified as clinicalpsychologists (called school clinical psychologists or SCPs) in the Japanese educational system and provides ahistorical review, dividing the history into three periods. The first period was from 1995 to 2000, encompassing thebeginning of SCP practice in public schools and associated challenges, including attaining acceptance and developingapproaches to effective collaboration with teachers. The second period was from 2001 to 2008, as SCP numbersincreased. The primary challenge of this period was how to standardize and share knowledge and practical skillsamong counselors, within the context of a large expansion. In the third period, encompassing 2009 to the presenttime, major challenges have included how to manage new requests from education bureaus and how to navigatecomplicated situations requiring multi-disciplinary collaboration with school social workers and other specialists. Inaddition, the present paper provides several case examples illustrating SCP roles and work realities.


Corresponding Author
Ayako Ito, Graduate School of Humanities and Sciences, Developmental and Clinical Psychology Course,
Ochanomizu University, Main 332 Otsuka 2-1-1, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 112-8610, Japan.
Email: ito.ayako@ocha.ac.jp