Ohio Reprimands Psychologist Joelle Floriana; Evaluated Dad in Custody Dispute Whom She Never Met

October 15, 2017

On October 12, 2017, the Ohio Board of Psychology (“Board”) reprimanded psychologist Joelle Floriana for negligence.

According to the Board’s document, Floriana counseled a mother and her two children, ages 9 and 11. The mother was at the time engaged in a divorce custody litigation with the children’s father.

Floriana “held an individual session with [the mother] and documented background information related to her perception of the children and their relationships with their father, including [the mother’s] assertion that the children did not want to visit their father.”

Based on this, as well as a session with the mother and children together, Floriana placed a call to Child Protective Services to make a report of “verbal and emotional abuse…on multiple occasions” against the father during visitation with his children. The same day, Floriana called the chidrens’ guardian ad litem (GAL, a court-appointed officer responsible for representing the children’s interests) to report on her session and inform the GAL that the children “are experiencing significant symptom of anxiety and depression not simply due to the divorce but due to the psychological abuse by their father during visitation.” She further informed the GAL that she’d advised the mother to suspend the father’s visitation with the children. She also provided this information to the GAL in writing, which included the following recommendations:

• “...suspend visitations to protect the girls from any further abuse and to contact an attorney to file a protective order…”
• Recommended that the father “would need a psychological assessment and individual treatment to address his issues….”
• The father is in “critical need to have individual treatment to address his issues contributing to the pattern of emotional abuse and psychological manipulation.”

Floriana had never met nor evaluated the father directly.