Anonymous Threatening Phone Calls Being
Made to Psychologists in Australia in 2010/2011
Who are the
perpetrators?
Starting in 2010
and continuing into 2011, many Australian Pyschologists have been receiving
anonymous telephone calls from a private number; a voice threatens them with legal action
and
criminal records unless they alter or remove their web sites and
advertising with extreme urgency.
Who is this bullying 'hit squad' of men and women making these harassing,
threatening phone calls?
The perpetrators are notably articulate, yet employ all of the usual
aggression and intimidation techniques of expert corporate bullies and
unethical debt collectors. They may call in the middle of the day, or even at
weekends...
At the core of their complaints are the titles and phrases that Psychologists
use to describe their services or specialties, such as "organisational
psychologist" or "counselling
psychologist". They insist that these terms are "illegal" and will result
in "prosecution" and a "criminal record" if web sites are not amended or taken
down "immediately" - and that Australian Psychology governing bodies say so. They purport to know details about their target - their qualifications,
what they are allowed to do or not do, and forcefully state these assumed facts.
At no point does the bully identify themselves, even when
repeatedly pressed to do so. Such is the weakness of the true bully - too scared to say who they are.
And so they should be, because what they are doing is a criminal offense in
Australia. (More on that in a minute...)
So here we have our regular, good-natured
Psychologist, minding their own business...and the telephone rings. An articulate yet oddly 'off' voice is
on the line, asking questions in strange ways that quickly descend into a
tirade of aggression and threats. Our good-natured Psychologist is left shaking
and in shock. What was THAT all about?! OMG, am I doing anything illegal?! What were they talking about?!
Who were they?
Could it have been the APS, or the PBA? Do I have to take my web site
down? For all but the most cool and collected among us, at least a little
panic ensues. Of course, this is exactly the effect that the bully had
intended.
Strategies
Here are some of the
tactics that these business bullies have been using to strike fear into the hearts
of
Australian Psychologists:
They
open with a question that uses the phrase with which they hope to snare their target. e.g. "Can I speak to a
counselling psychologist please?"
or "Are
you an organisational psychologist?" or "Do you ever refer to yourself as
an XYZ Psychologist?".
They know that Psychologists who
provide counselling or organisational psychology services are likely to say yes,
because of course to the general public these are generic terms - just
descriptors of the type of service they are interested in.
It certainly would be inappropriate to respond to an enquiry with a lengthy semantic
treatise correcting the enquirer's phrasing, "Well, we are psychologists and we
have done counselling for 25 years but we are not counselling psychologists, we
are psychologists who do counselling."
One can only imagine the expression on the face of the poor punter on the
receiving end of that.
The bullies know
this and no doubt imagine themselves to be terribly clever if they can get
their target to say "yes" after using the two words in the forbidden order, and use
this
as the launching pad for their stream of tyrranical threats.
Or if a non-target person answers the phone the bully may
make up a story
about seeking employment opportunities, asking "What does your business do
exactly...?" But they will then persist, calling back over the coming days
or weeks
until they get their target person. Yes, this seems to be a time-consuming
pursuit to which these bullies are very dedicated!
If you are a Registered Psychologist and receive a call like this, what should you do?
1. Don't panic. The bullies are wrong on most counts, say AHPRA and the
PBA. (We will explain in a minute...)
2. Ask for their name, where they are calling from and their contact
details. If they won't tell you, just keep asking, broken record style.
Do not engage them in conversation or answer their questions. You are
under no obligation whatsoever to answer the questions of any anonymous caller
and you should not.
Put the phone down.
3. Make a note of the exact time of the call and the
number it came in
on. Chances are that the bully believes that their call cannot be traced to them if they
use a 'Private number' setting on their phone, but they are very wrong. Making threatening
or harassing
phone calls is a Federal crime in Australia, so telecommunications companies are
set up to deal with perpetrators, first by writing to them with an order to cease and desist, followed by cutting off their service if
they don't and handing the account holder's name and address over to the
Police. So make
clear notes of the time of the call. Also make notes about the precise
phrasing used, and the accent and tonality
of the caller, as voices are readily identifiable.
4. Call the PBA and/or the APS to report your experience. They are already aware
and concerned about
these calls and should be informed about any more of them, because
there is a strong possibility that the offenders are Psychologists registered by
the Board. Not only does this behaviour directly contravene the APS Code
of Ethics in very serious ways but, as mentioned, it is a Federal crime. And frankly,
it's just not very well adjusted, is it? I don't know about you, but it
troubles me deeply that there is any type of Psychologist out there,
least of all a Counselling Psychologist, who considers this to be
an appropriate way to behave in between providing 'therapy' sessions.
5.
Consider making a Police report because (did we mention it already?) it's a
crime. In Australia, making harassing, threatening phone calls can attract
a jail term.
6. Do not take your web site down or pull your advertising!! That's just what these bullies
want you to do. But for your own peace of mind, check it for any of the
new 'endorsed' job titles - yes, even if you have held that job title for 25
years, unfortunately. Try not to use these terms if they don't
'officially' apply, at least until the teething troubles with the new
endorsement system get worked out over the next year or two and things
become clearer.
There are only seven terms that the PBA would prefer you to avoid,
leaving plenty of other job title options:
http://www.psychologyboard.gov.au/Registration-Standards.aspx
If your harasser claims that you cannot refer to yourself by
other terms, such as Industrial, Occupational, Child, Therapeutic
(or whatever) Psychologist, he is WRONG. If he claims that you
can no longer perform or advertise organisational, counselling, child (or
whatever) psychology services, he is WRONG. The new guidelines do
not limit scope of practice in any way, and of course you have to describe your
services so the public can find them.
Also check other online listings, because remember that third party listing
providers won't know the precise semantics of every profession they
list and are likely, understandably, to
view terms such as 'counselling' or 'organisational' as
generic. If possible, contact them and
ask for a category to be added or broadened, to allow you to advertise your services and qualifications
properly.
Even if you have inadvertently been using one of the titles newly allocated to 'endorsed' status you will not have a criminal record
and will not go to jail! That's just ridiculous. The bullies know
that most Psychologists are mild characters, so they drop in scary phrases like "You
will be prosecuted" and "You'll have a criminal record" purely in
the hope of causing enough
fear that you will shut up shop and get out of their way. It is, frankly,
sociopathic behaviour.
Also know that the
PBA are not a bunch of unreasonable, litigious meanies; they
are on the side of competent, ethical Psychologists because that's who they want
to be serving the Australian public. They know that the guidelines have changed
and that it means a period of adjustment pain, debate, reviews and amendments.
They will help you - call
them.
7. Know that you are far from alone. These bullies have been calling
a lot of Psychologists, on a schedule, as some kind of project.
Ask around and you'll find plenty of examples. Yes, these people are
actually spending their lives sitting in front of their phones, using their
precious time to maliciously threaten and harass strangers, when they could be
getting the lawn mowed, playing with the kids, doing some work, or making a cup
of tea instead. Musn't it be fun to be them?! Go figure.
8. Remember, normally functioning adults do
not make anonymous
threatening phone calls! They do not
seek to intimidate and harass other people for commercial greed, ego satisfaction
or other selfish interests. These people are very foolish, taking the incredible risk of, at
best, being struck off the Psychologist's register (if they are on it) and, at worst, attracting Police
attention and being criminally prosecuted by the now large group of
Psychologists they have threatened. They are in far more danger than you
could ever be for failing to delete your old job title from your web site!
Do you recognise these people? Here are some of the voices and
phrases used by the bullies. Do you know who they are? If your
suspicions are strong and well founded, consider talking to the PBA, APS and/or
to the Police about it:
1. Male, articulate. Seems very angry,
with an aggressive tone. Asks "Do you refer to yourself as an XYZ
psychologist?" Incorrectly insists that using the job title "Industrial
Psychologist"
or "Corporate Psychologist" and several other terms is "illegal". Uses phrases
like:
"This is just a
courtesy call at the moment", "Playing ignorant", "I urge you to take this
very seriously", "What you are doing is illegal", "You will be
prosecuted", "You will have a criminal record". He may
mention the PBA, implying that his threats are supported by them. One of
his victims suspects that he might be an academic. He is likely to be an older man, signing off
calls with an indignant "Good day!" or "Good day to you!"
2. Female, very articulate.
Her voice has a
strikingly pleasant southern/standard English accent and is beautifully metered. This person could do voice-over work.
She sounds in her mid to late 30s, but may not be. She claims "I am a
Counselling Psychologist"(!) and that she will be referring her targets for
"legal action".
To identify perpetrators
one must always begin by asking "Who could gain from this?" -
financially or even just egotistically or mean-spiritedly. The
'follow the money' principle says that these are likely to be competitors who are,
or who work in close partnership with, some the few Psychologists who carry one of the new 'endorsed' titles, either in business or in an accrediting institution. If
this is correct they should become
increasingly easy to identify, as their own actions are narrowing the field;
soon there will be only a handful of Psychologists left using these titles,
focusing investigators very neatly in on the perpetrators themselves.
It is strange that they appear to be working as a team,
attacking Psychologists across different specialties. Are there any
businesses or academic departments which employ both 'endorsed Organisational Psychologists' and 'endorsed Counselling Psychologists',
and perhaps others? If so, the rarity of that should make them even easier
to identify. That lovely accent also helps a lot...
Or perhaps they are bad apples hiding among the ranks of policy-makers
or membership organisations
- but this seems less likely as surely then they would then have had their facts straight.
Whoever they are, their immediate colleagues
may know them to be unusually fixated on credentials. They may
also be very competitively motivated, with aggression or condascention being felt by those closest to them in a variety of ways.
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How embarassing this behaviour is for the profession! And how very disappointing
it must be for the well-intentioned policy revisers who, no doubt, have put so much
work over the past few years into trying to keep bad apples out of
the system, not corralling them more persuasively into it.
We sincerely hope that we are wrong - but fear that we are not - that the offenders are
among our fellow
Registered Psychologists, or partners in their businesses or
institutions.
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