NOT A PSYCHOLOGIST

A curious twist of the law requires me to make it very clear to any readers, and to anyone who is interested, that I am no longer a Psychologist.

Yes it is still the case that I have three degrees in Psychology, achieved over seven years of very hard study as a dyslexic student at both Waikato and Auckland Universities in the early 1970's.

It is also still the case that I have spent at least 20 years of my professional life employed by the NZ Government Education Department as an Educational Psychologist, and another 10 years running my own private practice as a Registered Psychologist.

Four years ago I closed that Practice and with my partner, artist Natalie Tate, spent the next four years clocking up 46,000 kilometers in our mobile home/studio around New Zealand.  Natalie painted her way around NZ and I ran 400 seminars and workshops for teachers and parents.

As I was no longer practicing as a Psychologist I terminated my registration, and therefore my association with the NZ Psychologists Board, no longer paying any annual registration fee.  It came as something of a surprise to me to learn that with this act I also legally lost the right to the designation 'psychologist'.

Not only am I not entitled to call myself a psychologist, I cannot use the label 'éx-psychologist', 'retired psychologist', "Psychologist - not registered', nor even 'non-registered Psychologist'.  Somehow a life-time of involvement with psychology seems to have evaporated.

Therefore all references to being a psychologist (except historical statements) have been removed from my website, and I am required to make some clarifying statement at the beginning of every public presentation I make.  In short I have been instructed by the Psychologists Board that I am required to ensure that no member of the public is mislead into thinking that I am, or might be, a psychologist.

I suppose really I should see this as some sort of back-handed compliment, and get on with being what I really am - an Educator.

Laughton
April 2012