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The Catholic Church's Melbourne psychologist engaged in "professional misconduct" when counselling a victim of clergy abuse, the Psychology Board of Australia has found.
Peter O'Callaghan, QC, the independent commissioner of the Melbourne Archdiocese's internal complaints process for victims, Melbourne Response, refers victims to Carelink to arrange counselling sessions and professional support.
Susan Sharkey, co-ordinator of Carelink, discussed her own personal life with victim Noreen Wood, failed to prepare treatment and breached her privacy in a number of counselling sessions with her over a one-year period, the board's professional standards panel said in its decision, obtained by Fairfax Media.
Ms Sharkey denied that the 35 meetings, which took place at restaurants and cafes between 2004 and 2005, were counselling sessions, saying they had been to support and co-ordinate counselling services for Ms Wood until she found a suitable therapist.
"Ms Sharkey is a psychologist and it is hard for the panel to see how she could not have recognised that the containment of Ms W and the meetings which were held with her were not of a psychological counselling nature," the panel said.
"The panel considers that Ms Sharkey did counsel as alleged and should have recognised that that was what she was doing. Ms Sharkey has continually denied that she was counselling but the panel has no doubt that is exactly what she was doing and that she was doing it inappropriately."
The Jesuit order of the Catholic Church paid for the sessions after Ms Sharkey sent them a bill on her private practice stationery, calling them "counselling sessions".
Ms Wood said she did not feel vindicated by the decision "because this situation should never have happened".
She said she began seeing Ms Sharkey regularly to facilitate her complaint with the Catholic Church. The Jesuit order, then not subject to the Melbourne Response, would not listen to her complaint prior to her settlement with the order in 2003.
"Originally I was bewildered as to why she was taking me weekly for lunches but then I just gathered that it would fit into her timetable ... I wasn't overly perturbed, you've got to understand that when you've got a lot of issues you're not thinking (about what the right protocol is)."
The Psychology Board has cautioned Ms Sharkey and allowed her to continue to be registered as a psychologist, but only if she is supervised weekly for the next 12 months by a senior clinical psychologist or a senior counselling psychologist at her own expense.
This is to help her in "establishing appropriate boundaries with clients, and to identify transference and counter transference within professional relationships and how to manage these dynamics".
The supervisor must provide the board with a report at the end of the year to assess whether Ms Sharkey has met the "learning objectives" expected of her.
Calls to Ms Sharkey at Carelink were directed to the Melbourne Archdiocese.
A spokesman for the Archdiocese of Melbourne confirmed that the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (which is the umbrella body for the Psychology Board of Australia) had recently considered a matter relating to Ms Sharkey.
"Ms Sharkey through her solicitors has written to AHPRA in relation to this matter and is awaiting their response. Ms Sharkey is confident she has acted professionally at all times but is constrained from making any further comment out of respect for the AHPRA process."