Refer a Patient

If you have a patient in front of you and you’re trying to decide whether to send them my way, or whether a colleague is the better fit, this page is written for you. The fast-lane below tells you how to refer in two minutes. The rest is for the longer read: where my training was anchored, what I take, what I don’t, and what you can expect from me as a colleague.

Who I am, in two sentences

I’m a US-trained clinical psychologist in solo private practice in Singapore. My specialty is neurodiversity across the lifespan, with a clinical and research backbone in ADHD, anxiety and OCD, and mood and bipolar-spectrum conditions. I see children, adolescents, and adults.

I’m a registered clinical psychologist with the Singapore Register of Psychologists (SRP No. 2512014), and I serve as a review member for the SRP under the Singapore Psychological Society — which means I look at other clinicians’ credentials for a living, and I take the question of who is and isn’t the right person for a piece of work seriously. I’m also ADHD myself; if that matters to you for a particular patient, now you know.

The work I take

These are the areas where I do my best work, where my training is most direct, and where I’d be confident accepting a referral.

ADHD across the lifespan

Assessment and therapy for children (from age 5), adolescents, and adults. This includes late-diagnosed adults, women whose ADHD has been missed, and twice-exceptional profiles. Reports include DSM-5 diagnostic conclusions, multi-method data (rating scales, CPT, structured clinical interview), functional impairment ratings, and concrete school or workplace recommendations. Reports are MOE-compatible. Turnaround is typically two to three weeks from final session.

Anxiety disorders and OCD

CBT with exposure for the full range of anxiety presentations: generalised, social, separation, panic, health anxiety, specific phobias. ERP for OCD. I trained in this work directly at the Mayo Clinic Pediatric Anxiety Disorders Clinic under Dr. Stephen Whiteside, and during a year-long practicum at the UNC Anxiety Disorders Clinic under Dr. Jonathan Abramowitz. For children and adolescents, I’m trained in Parent-Coached Exposure Therapy, the family-based variant of exposure I learned at Mayo.

Mood and bipolar-spectrum conditions

Cognitive-behavioural and skills-based therapy for depressive disorders and bipolar-spectrum presentations, including diagnostic clarification when the picture is unclear. My doctoral training at UNC was primarily under Dr. Eric Youngstrom, whose work on paediatric bipolar disorder is foundational; before UNC, I spent about a year and a half as a research assistant in Dr. Lauren Alloy’s Mood and Cognition Lab at Temple University. The clinical work draws on protocols developed within those two research traditions.

Paediatric behavioural concerns

For young children (ages 2–7) with disruptive behaviour, oppositionality, or early-childhood ADHD, I’m trained in Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT). It’s a live-coached parent-child treatment that targets compliance, regulation, and the parent-child relationship itself. For older children and teens with behavioural concerns, I work with combined individual and family approaches, including school refusal and emotion-dysregulation pictures.

Where my training was anchored

I include this for due-diligence readers; quick referrers can skip to the next section.

• UNC Chapel Hill (PhD) — doctoral clinical and research training primarily under Dr. Eric Youngstrom (mood and bipolar-spectrum, evidence-based assessment). Year-long practicum at the UNC Anxiety Disorders Clinic under Dr. Jonathan Abramowitz (anxiety and OCD).
• Mayo Clinic (postdoctoral fellowship) — Pediatric Anxiety Disorders Clinic under Dr. Stephen Whiteside. Exposure-based CBT, ERP, and Parent-Coached Exposure Therapy.
• Duke University — rotation in Dr. Geraldine Dawson‘s autism group (under Dr. Jill Lorenzi), with regular seminars led by Dr. Dawson. Why I know the autism territory well, and why I still refer autism work out, which I’ll explain below.
• Temple University (research only) — research assistant in Dr. Lauren Alloy‘s Mood and Cognition Lab, ~1.5 years, pre-doctoral. The kind of work that teaches you to read the literature like a clinician, not a consumer.
• Honours and contributions — APA Presidential Citation (2019, awarded as the first graduate student to receive it), 100+ research contributions across peer-reviewed publications, chapters, and presentations. Full list at /training-credentials/.

When I’m not the right fit, and where to send your patient instead

A reasonable clinician says no to work they are not the best person for. The areas below come up regularly enough that it helps to be plain about them up front, so you don’t waste a referral cycle on a fit that isn’t there.

• Autism assessment and autism-specific intervention. Despite Duke training, I don’t run an autism specialty in private practice. That work needs full-time focus and team infrastructure I don’t run here. I refer to colleagues and clinics in Singapore who do (A Kind Place, Beary Psychology, and others); the full list lives on my clinical fit page.
• Severe eating disorders requiring multidisciplinary care. Eating disorders at the level of medical instability or intensive multidisciplinary treatment belong in a setting built for that. I refer to Ms. Amerie Baeg and Illuminate Psychology for eating-disorder-specialised care.
• Active psychosis or psychotic-spectrum presentations. Outside private-practice scope. These belong with psychiatrists and clinical teams equipped for them (IMH, Promises Healthcare).
• Severe complex trauma requiring phased specialist treatment. I treat anxiety disorders including PTSD symptoms that fit within exposure-based work. I am not the right person for primary somatic, IFS-at-depth, or EMDR-as-modality work; I refer to colleagues with that training.
• Couples therapy as the primary presenting concern. A distinct specialty I don’t practise. I refer to Winifred Ling and Theresa Pong.
• Medication management. I’m a clinical psychologist, not a psychiatrist. When medication is part of the picture, I refer and coordinate; Dr. Adrian Loh at Promises Healthcare is one of my regular partners for child and adolescent psychiatry.
• Open-ended supportive talk therapy without a specific change goal. A reasonable thing to want, and there are good clinicians who offer it. My work is structured, skills-based, and time-limited where possible, so if that’s the brief, I’m not the right person.

What you can expect from me as a colleague

• Response within one business day to any referral email at clinic@lightfull-psychology.com.
• A direct yes or no on fit, not a vague “I’ll see them and then decide.” If I’m not the right person, I’ll tell you, and I’ll usually have a colleague in mind.
• Phone consultation before or during treatment with appropriate consent, especially for complex presentations. Five minutes on a call regularly saves an hour of letters.
• Reports written for the people who’ll use them. Diagnostic conclusions, functional impact, treatment recommendations, school or workplace accommodation guidance where applicable. MOE-compatible. Two- to three-week turnaround from final session.
• Coordination with paediatricians, psychiatrists, and schools as part of standard care, with consent in place.
• Honest scope. Sessions are sixty to ninety minutes, variable but structured depending on what the work needs. Small caseload, by design. That means when I take a referral, I have the bandwidth to do it well.

A note on how I think about referrals

Starting work that shouldn’t have started is the worst outcome for everyone: for the patient, for you, and for me. I’d rather say no early and route a referral well than accept work I’m not the best person for. If you’ve ever sent someone in good faith and watched the fit not hold, you know exactly what I mean.

The corollary: when I do say yes, you can take it as a real signal of fit. Not a default acceptance, not a calendar-management decision. An actual judgment that this is work I’m equipped to do.