Dr. Michael S. Bishop, PH.D., LPC, LMFT

Initially my former husband hired Dr. Bishop for himself only. Then, after we had a hearing for custody modification, the Judge ruled that our children need to go through therapy. So, first of all, Dr. Bishop shouldn’t have been taking our children as his patients because he already was working with my former husband as his therapist. Also, both of my children admitted that they “hate these sessions”, as my former husband is sitting right there and listening to what they say. My children said that they never felt comfortable to share how they really feel because they are “afraid to make their dad mad”. When my lawyer asked how is that possible, why Dr. Bishop (a professional who is recommended by divorce attorneys in Austin area) allows it, they called it a “family therapy” and my lawyer specifically asked to include me in these sessions. But Dr. Bishop never reached out to me and kept doing what he was doing and risking his license.

At the court hearing, Dr. Bishop demonstrated that he did not know a lot of crucial information about his patients, like kids’ living conditions (e.g., my daughter shares bedroom with my former mother-in-law, hence, she has absolutely no privacy and cannot call me and talk to me when she needs me), and some very significant events of my former husband’s life (who was Dr. Bishop’s patient himself), like our divorce history, why we divorced, why it happened twice, etc. He never knew that fact that we had reconciled once before with my former husband and gave it another try.

How can Dr. Bishop potentially help his patients if he doesn’t have some history of our family that affects my children’s lives? And he dared to agree to be a witness at the court hearing. I don’t think that his testimony can be considered trustworthy. And not only it doesn’t help my children’s mental health and wellbeing, but it affects people’s whole lives, because court decisions with parenting plans and schedules depend on that. The Judges highly rely on psychologists’ testimonies.

Our final hearing has already happened and there is nothing I can do now about my own situation. However, I’m now thinking, how many Austin children / families are already affected? Maybe some of them are not seeing their moms or dads enough or even at all, due to Dr. Bishop’s testimonies he made at court?

I am not even talking about how Dr. Bishop never bothered to return my calls (I have proof of calling and even talking to his assistant, who confirmed that Dr. Bishop has my former husband in the schedule, however, not my children, for some reason), he never tried to reach out to me while it’s a family therapy, but did allow my former husband’s girlfriend to attend the sessions.

This is unprofessional and inappropriate behavior that affects people’s lives. I hope this review will be helpful for someone who is looking for a therapist.