A clinical psychologist with close to 40 years working with children and families has retired.

Guy Fowle was president of the Bermuda Psychological Association from 1995 to 1999 and was part of a four-strong team that drafted legislation to introduce a formal process for the registration of psychologists.

Born in Bermuda, Dr Fowle was registered locally and licensed in Texas.

He returned home in 1986 after extended training in North America and has been a licensed psychologist since 1987.

Dr Fowle worked for Family Services and later became the senior school psychologist at the Department of Education for two years. He was later involved in private practice.

Along with the team at the Bermuda Psychological Association, Dr Fowle wrote and edited the rules that regulated the registration of psychology on the island through the Bermuda Psychological Registration Council, for which he was chairman.

The council, within the Psychological Practitioners Act, was introduced in 1998 to secure high standards of professional competence and conduct in the practice of psychology in Bermuda.

Dr Fowle said: “It took us years to create. Once the law was enacted, you had to go through a registration process in Bermuda to be able to call yourself a psychologist.

“It would have improved the process because previous to the Act, there were some who were calling themselves psychologists who were not. It was legal as there was no established law.

“Once the law was established, you could not call yourself a psychologist unless you were approved by a board on the Bermuda Psychological Association.”

Dr Fowle specialises in psychological assessments of children, adolescents and adults using the technique of therapeutic assessment as well as conducting more traditional neuropsychological, learning and emotional evaluations.

More recently he has been involved in court-ordered assessments in the area of parenting and child evaluations as well as evaluations for people with disabilities.

Dr Fowle undertook formal assessments of adults and children in a broad number of areas including evaluations for Attention Deficit Disorder/Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder evaluations, and adoption and custody.

One observation he has made over his years working with families is the lack of time parents and guardians have with their children.

Dr Fowle said: “The attention that can be paid to many children is not as much as it should be. Everybody has to work.

“Grandparents who help care for children like to have this ideal that they are doing the pleasurable part but with both parents working, that is hard to do.

“There is not the constructive time — the interaction with the parents that is not based on getting things done.

“There is less time to be there for the correct interactions that promote an ideal sense of structure.

“As a result, that can get internalised by the children as they get older. It can make it difficult for them to create functional, intimate relationships as well as the ability to be independent or get invested in work and to be motivated.”

Dr Fowle is also a director of the Bermuda Mental Health Foundation which promotes the preservation of mental health services in Bermuda and provides rehabilitation resources for those suffering from mental disorders.