Sunshine Coast psychologist disqualified over misconduct
A veteran health professional’s three-decade career has ended in disgrace amid disturbing misconduct claims during a supervision.
A Sunshine Coast psychologist has been disqualified after a three-decade long career for inappropriately touching and texting a student on placement.
The Psychology Board of Australia applied to the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal regarding action they took against a Sunshine Coast psychologist regarding allegations of misconduct with a woman he was supervising on a placement.
The man, who cannot be named, first became a psychologist in 1990, the tribunal documents show.
The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency register shows he worked at a Sunshine Coast practice before his registration was disqualified in May this year.
According to the court documents the man’s registration was suspended in October 2020, after a woman he had supervised reported him to the Office of the Health Ombudsman for failing to “maintain professional boundaries” during her placement with him between 2019 and 2020.
The documents stated there was a power imbalance between the psychologist and the woman he supervised.
“As I stated earlier, the complainant was a young female practitioner vulnerable by virtue of her age, level of experience and the supervisor-supervisee relationship, and therefore, there was a power imbalance between the respondent and the complainant,” the documents stated.
“Such a matter is clearly identified in the APS Code of Ethics and in the guidelines which have been mentioned.”
The documents reveal a total of three allegations made against the psychologist during his time supervising.
“Allegation one is that he breached professional boundaries with the complainant by making inappropriate comments of a sexual nature, making inappropriate physical contact and engaging in inappropriate contact by telephone calls, texting and attending her musical performances,” the documents stated.
The second allegation refers to him charging a private supervision fee when it was allegedly inappropriate to do so, while the third stated he failed to keep adequate records of the supervision period.
The court documents show the facts were not disputed in the tribunal proceedings.
QCAT Member Julie Dick stated it was the tribunal’s view the move to disqualify the psychologist was appropriate.
According to the documents the man does not intend to work as a psychologist again.
