Dr Alison O’Neill
Clinical Psychologist
PhD, M Psych (Clinical), BA (Hons), MAPS, FCCLP
reception@collectivepsych.com.au
Dr Alison O’Neill has been a Clinical Psychologist for 25 years. She holds a bachelor (Honours), master’s degree in clinical psychology, and a PhD where she researched the quality and consistency of single expert reports in family law proceedings.
Alison’s special interests lie in surrogacy, developmental psychology, attachment, mental illness in children and adults, parenting, the impact of mental health and substance abuse on parenting capacity, and the impact of separation on children.
For the first 10 years of her career, Alison provided psychological treatment for children and adults. Over the past 15 years, she has focused primarily on assessing complex families. She has prepared in excess of 400 expert reports about children and families in various jurisdictions, including family court and children’s court.
Alison’s core practice is now devoted to surrogacy counselling and child inclusive practice (CIP). She provides various surrogacy counselling (pre-surrogacy counselling, relinquishment counselling, post-surrogacy counselling) and writes reports for clinics and/or the Supreme Court.
She also provides child inclusive consultations for alternate dispute resolution pathways, such as mediation and collaborative practice. Here, she applies her extensive experience to help parents and professionals understand children’s experiences and hear their voices.
She continues to provide supportive counselling for parents going through legal proceedings.
Alison is a Director of Sydney Collective Psychology, a Member of the Australian Psychological Society (APS) and APS Clinical College, a Member of the Australian and New Zealand Infertility Counsellors’ Association (ANZICA), a trained Child Consultant (McIntosh – Children Beyond Dispute) and Coach (Timmins- Divorce Done Differently), a Member of Australian Association of Collaborative Professionals (AACP), an accredited report writer for the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC), and an Authorised Clinician for the Children’s Court Clinic.
Alison is currently accepting referrals for:
- Donor counselling and reports
- Child consultations in collaborative law
- Child consultations in mediation (child focused and child inclusive mediation)
- Mental Health Assessments in family law and child protection
- Child Impact Reports
- Pre-Surrogacy counselling and reports
- Relinquishment counselling after a surrogacy pregnancy
- Post-Surrogacy counselling and reports
- Assessments regarding children’s wishes in family law matters
- Assessments in child protection or adoption matters