Advertising rules for psychotherapists in Austria: PThG 2024, Werberichtlinie and your practice website

Advertising rules for psychotherapists: PThG 2024 and guidelines

Since 2025, the Psychotherapiegesetz 2024 (PThG 2024, Psychotherapy Act) has governed your profession. There is no chamber, so the advertising rules are set out in the law itself. They are specified by guidelines of the Ministry of Health, which are not laws but describe the standard of care for your profession.

Important when working with agencies: you may neither prompt nor help with prohibited advertising by third parties, such as media, platforms or your web agency (§ 48 Abs. 2 PThG 2024). So always read texts, ads and profiles yourself before they go online. Violations can have consequences under administrative criminal law.

What you may and should show

The Werberichtlinie lists which information is permitted alongside your name and professional title. It even requires your details to provide sufficient information about the type, scope and indication of your services. For your website, this means:

• Name, professional title, additional title and academic degrees
• Address, phone number and consultation hours
• Setting: individual, couple, family or group therapy
• Age groups you work with, such as children and adolescents
• Languages you work in
• Memberships of professional associations
• Areas of focus and target groups that result from your training and further training, e.g. cancer or addiction
• Information on social health insurance, such as whether and how reimbursement is possible

If you also practise another psychosocial profession, you may mention it, but clearly separated from psychotherapy. This applies, for example, if you also work in Lebens- und Sozialberatung (life and social counselling): a separate section, a separate professional title, separate prices.

Where the line is

According to the Werberichtlinie, any information is unobjective that is untrue, misleading, loudly self-promoting or unrelated to the profession, contradicts scientific knowledge or raises expectations that cannot be met. Specifically, the guideline names:

• Disparaging remarks about colleagues or other methods and comparative advertising
• The impression of an exclusivity that does not exist (“the only trauma therapist in the district”)
• Intrusive or loud self-promotion
• Vouchers for psychotherapeutic services and offers in auctions
• Flyers, unaddressed mail drops or promotional emails to people outside your circle of patients
• Advertising lettering on vehicles, promotional calls without consent and talks that are really promotional events
• TV, radio, cinema, poster and internet advertising such as banner ads on other websites: these should be avoided altogether
• Offers unrelated to the profession, such as astrology, Bach flower remedies or aromatherapy, in connection with psychotherapy

No client testimonials, no success rates

In psychotherapy, testimonials are not just delicate but practically incompatible with the profession. Even a friendly quote reveals that someone was in treatment with you. Someone who is asked for a recommendation within a relationship of dependency can hardly say no freely. And sentences like “After ten sessions my anxiety was gone” raise exactly the expectations that cannot be met which the Werberichtlinie warns against.

The same applies to success rates (“92% of our clients feel better after therapy”) and star widgets. Even if a figure is correct, it is not meaningful for the individual person. That is why our websites for psychotherapists deliberately have no review or testimonial section. Trust comes from an honest portrait, a clear description of how you work and transparent fees.

Professional title, cluster and method

§ 8 PThG 2024 regulates precisely who may use which title. Mistakes in the title are among the most common complaints about websites.

• Professional title: “Psychotherapeutin”, “Psychotherapeut” or “Psychotherapeut:in” (§ 8 Abs. 1 PThG 2024).
• Cluster and method: In brackets, you may state the cluster, i.e. humanistic, psychoanalytic-psychodynamic or systemic therapy or behaviour therapy, and after a slash the method, e.g. “Psychotherapeutin (Systemische Therapie/Systemische Familientherapie)” (systemic therapy/systemic family therapy) (§ 8 Abs. 2).
• Further training: A quality-assured further training may follow the additional titles, together with the method learned (§ 8 Abs. 3).
• In specialist training, you use the title “Psychotherapeut:in in Fachausbildung unter Lehrsupervision” (psychotherapist in specialist training under supervision) in full, also on your website and on social media (§ 8 Abs. 8).
• Confusingly similar titles such as “Psychotherapeutische Beraterin” (psychotherapeutic counsellor) or “Psychotherapie-Coach” are forbidden to anyone not authorised to practise psychotherapy (§ 8 Abs. 7).

Made-up titles such as “burnout specialist” or “anxiety expert” are not protected titles. They look like an additional qualification that does not exist. Write “Area of focus: exhaustion and burnout” instead.

Making fees and reimbursement transparent

The question of cost often decides whether someone gets in touch. The Werberichtlinie explicitly allows information on social health insurance, and a clear fees page saves you many questions in the first session. Here, transparency is good marketing.

What you should avoid: “special price”, “free first session, March only” or package discounts (“10 sessions for the price of 8”). That is promotion and puts the commercial side ahead of the professional one. You may, however, mention a free short phone call to get to know each other in an objective way.

Google reviews: don’t prevent them, don’t ask for them

Anyone can review your practice’s Google Business Profile. You can only have reviews removed that violate Google’s guidelines, such as offensive or obviously fake ones. You should not, however, actively ask your patients for reviews: the request itself puts people in a role that conflicts with the therapeutic relationship, and every public review makes it visible that someone was in treatment with you.

• Replying: Never confirm that someone is your patient, not even in response to unfair criticism. A short, general reply without any reference to the treatment is enough; often no reply is best.
• Embedding: Stars or review widgets don’t belong on your website.
• Maintaining: Keep opening hours, address and website link in your profile up to date. How to do this is shown in the post on the Google profile.

Social media, content and online psychotherapy

On the internet and in social networks, § 48 PThG 2024 applies too: objective, truthful, without promises of cure. Professional content is explicitly possible and often the best advertising.

• Psychoeducation: Posts on topics such as sleep, stress or anxiety are allowed if they are professionally accurate and contain no promises of cure.
• Case examples: Only heavily disguised, so that no one, not even the person concerned, recognises themselves.
• No counselling by direct message: Refer to the first session. According to the Richtlinie Online-Psychotherapie (guideline on online psychotherapy), chats are only a supplement to ongoing treatment.
• Ads: The Werberichtlinie recommends avoiding internet advertising such as banner ads on other websites altogether. Whether a discreet search ad falls under this is not explicitly regulated. If you want to be on the safe side, do without it or clarify it with your professional association beforehand.
• Online psychotherapy: Use exactly this term. The guideline rejects terms such as “online therapy”, “cyber therapy” or “virtual couch”. Under § 39 PThG 2024, online psychotherapy is only permitted synchronously with sound and picture and only where there is a need justified on professional or geographical grounds; at least one in-person session within the first five is recommended.
• Apps and AI: Apps can accompany treatment, but not replace it. So don’t advertise “therapy by app”.

Ban on commissions: no money for referrals

You may not promise, give, accept or be promised any payment for the referral of patients (§ 49 PThG 2024). Such agreements are void, amounts paid can be reclaimed, and the ban also applies to other persons and companies. In practice, this mainly concerns:

• Referral platforms that charge a fee per referred patient or per booked first session
• “Referral bonuses” for doctors, coaches or colleagues
• Affiliate links through which you earn a share from apps or products you recommend to patients

A directory listing with a fixed annual fee, regardless of the number of enquiries, is something else. But check the small print before you sign up.

Quick check for your texts

Which details belong in the Impressum (legal notice) is covered in the mandatory information for psychotherapists. If you are just starting out: the guide to opening your own psychotherapy practice takes you from the Berufsliste (professional register) to opening day. What the rules look like for other professions is shown in the posts on advertising for doctors and advertising for physiotherapists.