Psychologists face a reputation problem that is different from almost every other profession. Their work is confidential by default, which means they cannot respond publicly to a negative review, correct a misleading forum post, or explain a court outcome. At the same time, they are visible in all the places that can go wrong: the AHPRA public register, court and tribunal decisions on AustLII, Google reviews, parenting forums, and media coverage of expert-witness work. When something negative reaches page one of Google, it tends to stay there, and the profession's ethical obligations often prevent the practitioner from pushing back.
The session covers the asymmetry between how complaints and resolutions rank, the platforms that consistently outrank a psychologist's own website, the confidentiality trap that makes standard "respond to the review" advice unsafe, AHPRA's Section 133 advertising rules that catch practitioners when they try to rebuild, and what reputation repair actually is (and is not).
Key takeaways
- A five-minute method to audit you own Google results the way a prospective client would
- How to claim and correct the platforms most likely to rank your name, compliantly
- A confidentiality-safe response rulebook for negative reviews and public comments
- A concrete first-48 hour plan for when something negative surfaces
- A minimum viable plan to build a positive digital presence on a small time budget, within Section 133
- How to recognise the red-flag scenarios where legal advice is the right first move rather than reputation work
- A short checklist you can work through for your own profile after the webinar.
About our presenter: Clare Burns
Clare Burns is the co-founder of Narrative Digital Reputation Management, an Australian firm that specialises in helping registered health practitioners manage the way they appear in Google search results. She came into reputation work from the clinical side: more than a decade in ICU and anaesthetic nursing, where she saw first-hand the weight that practitioners carry and, later, the quiet damage done when a single search result becomes the only thing a patient, referrer or employer sees.
Narrative Digital works almost exclusively with regulated health professionals, which means its methods are designed around the specific constraints that psychologists, doctors and allied health clinicians live with every day: strict confidentiality, AHPRA's advertising rules under Section 133 of the National Law, mandatory reporting obligations, and the ethical lines that make the standard "digital marketing" playbook unusable. The approach is content-led and evidence-based rather than legalistic, and it is explicit that reputation repair is a slow compounding process, not a takedown service.
Clare writes regularly on practitioner reputation and wellbeing, including in The Medical Republic, where her piece "The hidden cost of negative press: how search results affect medical professionals' mental health" reached many of the same readers AAPi serves. She lives in Sydney and works with practitioners across Australia.
Webinar timing: 7:00 – 8:00 pm AEST
Access to the recording of this webinar: A recording of this webinar will be available through the CPD Webinar Library, but for the best experience and the opportunity to ask your questions, join us live. Everyone who registers will be advised via email as soon as the recording is available. Members have unlimited access to the recording, and non-members will have access for 6 months.