Dr Sarah Hartley

Dr Sarah Hartley, formerly Dr Sarah Birch, is a Clinical Psychologist and Director of Psychologie Ltd, which was set up to provide good-quality and timely assessments and treatment of adults. Dr Hartley is currently a Consultant Clinical Psychologist for South London & Maudsley NHS FoundationTrust and she also works as a private therapist and yoga teacher. 

Her area of special interest in psychological treatment is trauma and complex trauma/personality disorder; she is trained in Mentalisation-Based Therapy and in EMDR. She is also trained to assess Autistic Spectrum Condition using both the ADOS and the ADI-R. 

Dr Hartley provides assessments for the Courts, and has extensive expert witness experience having been working as an Expert Witness since 2007. With regard to child protection, her particular areas of speciality are personality disorder and parenting, non-accidental injury, failure to thrive and domestic violence. She has also carried out assessments in private family law cases and has done numerous global family assessments.  

She has conducted numerous reports in personal injury cases, medical negligence, accident compensation claims, and other cases where an assessment of post traumatic stress disorder symptoms is required. She has acted as expert in many criminal cases concerning fitness to plead/stand trial and cases where trauma symptoms and Autistic Spectrum Disorder are pertinent.

She has experience of giving evidence in Court, including at the High Court. Dr Hartley has undertaken expert witness training in the Bond Solon Course: “Giving evidence for Expert Witnesses.”

Dr Hartley, under her maiden name Dr Sarah Birch, has contributed two chapters to a book on the assessment of parenting capacity, which are:

Birch, S. (2015) Factors that demonstrate change or potential change in parenting capacity. In Bryn Williams, Emma Peart & Roger Young (Eds.) Understanding and assessing a parent’s capacity to change within the timescales of the child. London: Jordan Publishing.

Carstairs, Kari & Birch, S. (2015). Assessing a parent’s capacity to change in psychotherapy: The use of the Rorschach and the MMPI-2. In Bryn Williams, Emma Peart & Roger Young (Eds.) Understanding and assessing a parent’s capacity to change within the timescales of the child. London: Jordan Publishing.

Completed training with EMDR Works to obtain registration as a practitioner in Eye Movement Desensitisation Reprocessing treatment; Institute of Family Therapy, Postgraduate Diploma in Systemic Practice with Families & Couples: Merit

Chartered by the British Psychological Society; Registered by the Health & Care Professions Council; Member of EMDR Association UK & Ireland