Dr Laurel Morris is a psychologist, holding an Honours degree and a doctorate in psychology and a postgraduate diploma in clinical psychology from La Trobe University. She is in independent practice in clinical, health and forensic psychology on the Gold Coast, and currently supervises graduate students in clinical and forensic psychology at Bond University.
Dr Morris completed one of the first honours degrees in psychology at La Trobe University in 1975, researching the treatment of orgasmic problems in women. Her doctorate was one of the first in Australian psychology to address a clinical problem, the causes and treatment of obesity, completed in 1982. She completed the Postgraduate Diploma in Clinical Psychology, partly at La Trobe University and partly at the Koko Head Clinic in Honolulu, the Victorian Education Department Clinic at Greensborough, and the Psychology Department at the University of Oregon.
Dr Morris was elected as a Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society in 2013 in recognition of her services to the discipline and the profession. She is a Fellow of its Colleges of Clinical Psychologists, of Health Psychologists and of Forensic Psychologists. She has served on various committees of the Society and is past Chair of the Gold Coast Branch. She is a member of the Australia and New Zealand Association for Psychiatry, Psychology and Law.
After completing her doctorate, Dr Morris worked in private practice in clinical, health and forensic psychology in Melbourne for 12 years and then on the Gold Coast for nine years. She continued a part-time practice in Canberra while working for two years as Lecturer in Clinical Psychology at the University of Canberra. She has conducted seminars and training courses for a wide range of groups, including other professionals, students, business people, corporations and community groups. She has made radio broadcasts on a range of psychological topics and occasional television appearances. She is the author of ten self help books on topics ranging from family relationships, to living with anxiety, coping with life crises, and healthy lifestyling, including one on weight loss based on her doctoral research.
For five years she was the Clinical Supervisor in the teaching clinic at Bond University. In 2003 she took up a lectureship at the University of Canberra, where she again directed the teaching clinic and taught in both the undergraduate and postgraduate clinical psychology courses. In 2005 she became Lecturer in Psychology at Griffith University on the Gold Coast, teaching in the postgraduate course in clinical psychology and supervising in their teaching clinic. Her career thus includes an unusual combination of both extensive professional and academic experience. In 2007 she accepted an invitation to become an adjunct Associate Professor at the University of the Sunshine Coast to contribute to the new postgraduate program in clinical psychology, and she is now a Teaching Fellow at Bond University.