Lisa Maree Phillips

Introduction

Lisa Maree Phillips is an Australian psychologist who worked in East Maitland, New South Wales, and whose registration was cancelled after the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal found that between August 2017 and May 2023 she breached professional boundaries with a patient by engaging first an inappropriate personal relationship with her and then a sexual relationship. The Health Care Complaints Commission prosecuted the complaint. In its decision of 26 May 2026 the Tribunal found the complaint proven, found Phillips guilty of unsatisfactory professional conduct and professional misconduct, cancelled her registration as a psychologist and imposed a non-review period of two years.

Background Information

Phillips practised as a psychologist in East Maitland in the Hunter region of New South Wales. The relationship found proven spanned nearly six years, from August 2017 to May 2023 — beginning, on the Tribunal’s finding, as an inappropriate personal relationship with a patient and later becoming sexual. Psychology’s ethical code prohibits dual and sexual relationships with current clients outright, because the therapeutic relationship gives the practitioner access to a patient’s inner life and creates a dependency that makes meaningful consent to a personal relationship structurally impossible while treatment continues. The case was prosecuted by the Health Care Complaints Commission before the Tribunal, NSW’s senior disciplinary forum for registered health practitioners.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Tribunal findings. The findings below are the formal adjudications of the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal in a case prosecuted by the Health Care Complaints Commission. They were found proven in the Tribunal’s decision of 26 May 2026. The sources report no criminal proceedings arising from the conduct.

It was alleged that between August 2017 and May 2023, while working at East Maitland, Phillips breached professional boundaries with a patient by engaging in an inappropriate personal relationship with her, and then later a sexual relationship. In its decision of 26 May 2026 the Tribunal found the complaint proven, found Ms Phillips guilty of unsatisfactory professional conduct and professional misconduct, cancelled her registration as a psychologist and imposed a non-review period of two years.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The Health Care Complaints Commission published its media release announcing the cancellation on 28 May 2026, two days after the Tribunal’s decision. Cancellation with a two-year non-review period means Phillips cannot seek review before May 2028, and any later return would require the Tribunal to be satisfied she is fit to practise — a high bar after a finding of a years-long relationship that turned sexual with a patient.

Current Status

Phillips’s psychologist registration is cancelled, with the non-review period running two years from the decision. She cannot practise as a psychologist in Australia while unregistered. The Tribunal’s decision is published through NSW Caselaw. The sources report no public statement from Phillips beyond the admission local reporting described, and no appeal against the decision.

Impact on Their Career/Life

A psychology career in the Hunter ended with a finding that the boundary between clinician and client dissolved over six years into a personal and sexual relationship — the single clearest category of professional-misconduct finding in the discipline. The length of the relationship, and the progression from personal to sexual involvement with a current patient, weighed into the cancellation rather than a conditions-based sanction. Phillips’s case joins a run of NSW psychologist cancellations published by the Commission in 2026 involving client relationships, underscoring that admission does not avert erasure from the register.

Sources

• NSW Health Care Complaints Commission, “Ms Lisa Maree Phillips – Psychologist – Registration cancelled for unsatisfactory professional conduct and professional misconduct,” 28 May 2026 — source