An Ontario psychologist who specialized in child and adolescent grief has surrendered her career after a disciplinary panel found she engaged in “disgraceful, dishonourable, and unprofessional” conduct. The psychologist, Dr. Laura Brown, formed a close personal relationship with the family of two young children she was treating to help them cope with their mother’s terminal illness and death. In a case cited as Ontario (College of Psychologists and Behaviour Analysts of Ontario) v. Brown, 2025 ONCPD 2 (CanLII), Dr. Brown admitted to all allegations of professional misconduct, which included abandoning her vulnerable clients, failing to maintain professional boundaries, and keeping inadequate records.
The case dates back to September 2020, when a man identified as Dr. X hired Dr. Brown to provide therapeutic support for his two minor children, identified as Y and Z. The children’s mother, Ms. X, was terminally ill, and Dr. Brown was engaged specifically for her expertise in helping children navigate grief and bereavement. She provided therapy to the children over the course of approximately 12 sessions between late October and late December 2020. According to an Agreed Statement of Facts presented at the hearing, Dr. Brown failed to create or keep clinical notes for most of these sessions, and the few records she did make were incomplete. This was the first of several violations of the profession’s standards.
The professional relationship took a significant turn when Dr. Brown began sharing her own personal hardships with the family. Based on this self-disclosure, she terminated the therapeutic services for the children. However, she only communicated this decision to the children’s father, Dr. X. She never met with her young clients, Y and Z, to explain why their therapy was suddenly ending. An expert psychologist retained by the College of Psychologists and Behaviour Analysts of Ontario, Dr. Leslie Balmer, would later describe this failure as an “egregious oversight.” Dr. Balmer noted that abandoning the children at such a critical and difficult point in their lives denied them proper grief therapy and would most likely have been “terribly confusing” for them.
Immediately after ending the professional services, Dr. Brown’s role in the family’s life shifted dramatically. She formed a close, familial-type personal relationship with Dr. X and the two children. While the relationship was described as intimate, it was explicitly non-sexual in nature. This new relationship as a family friend continued after the children’s mother passed away and occurred well within the two year period following the termination of psychological services, a direct violation of Standard 13.5 of the Standards of Professional Conduct, which governs relations with former clients. The relationship between Dr. Brown and the family ended in July 2021.
Following a complaint, the College launched an investigation. Dr. Balmer, an expert in childhood bereavement, concluded that Dr. Brown’s conduct fell significantly short of professional standards. She criticized the poor record keeping and the harmful decision to transition from therapist to friend during one of the most vulnerable moments in the children’s lives. The matter proceeded to a hearing before the College’s Discipline Committee on February 25, 2025, where Dr. Brown admitted to the allegations against her. She confessed to failing to maintain the standards of the profession, discontinuing needed services, and engaging in conduct that members of the profession would reasonably regard as disgraceful, dishonourable, or unprofessional.
The Discipline Committee, in its decision, delivered a sharp rebuke of Dr. Brown’s actions. The panel noted that her misconduct was not a simple error in judgment, but a profound failure by a practitioner whose entire practice was focused on the very issues the family was facing. The panel concluded that Dr. Brown, given her experience, “should have been acutely aware of the potential harm that boundary violations and withdrawal of her services” could cause her young clients. Her actions were found to demonstrate a “reckless disregard for the children’s well-being” and constituted a “serious breach of trust that could result in emotional harm.” The panel concurred that her conduct was not just unprofessional, but also dishonourable and disgraceful.
Before the penalty was imposed, Dr. Brown took the extraordinary step of voluntarily signing an undertaking on November 27, 2024. In this legally binding agreement, she resigned from the College and promised never to reapply for registration as a psychologist in Ontario or any other jurisdiction in the world. She further agreed to never provide psychological services, psychotherapeutic services, or mental health counselling to any person anywhere. This undertaking effectively ended her career.
At the hearing, the parties made a joint submission on penalty, which the panel accepted. The panel formally ordered that Dr. Brown be reprimanded, that her (already surrendered) certificate of registration be suspended for a period of twelve months, and that she pay the College $3,500 in costs. The panel stated that the penalty was necessary to send a “significant message to the profession” about the importance of maintaining professional boundaries and the severe consequences of abandoning vulnerable clients. It noted that while Dr. Brown’s undertaking to never practice again satisfied the goal of public protection, the suspension and reprimand served as a strong, public condemnation of her behaviour. Dr. Brown waived her right to appeal and received the formal reprimand at the conclusion of the hearing.
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