Providing trauma-informed, culturally responsive psychotherapy to support healing, identity, and wellbeing.

Dr Allison R. King is a Clinical and Counselling Psychologist, researcher and author. She is the Senior and Lead Clinical and Counselling Psychologist for Neurodevelopment & Complex Presentations at Connections Healthcare Centre in Perth, Western Australia.

She holds a Doctor of Psychology and Psychotherapy (PhD), a Master of Science in Psychology with Distinction, postgraduate in Neuroscience and Psychology from King’s College London, a Master of Business Administration (MBA) and clinical care of autistic adults through Harvard Medical School and ADOS-2 assessment training. Her education brings together psychology, psychotherapy, neuroscience, neurodevelopment, leadership and research.

Dr King’s clinical work encompasses neurodivergence, including autism and ADHD, alongside trauma, obsessive–compulsive disorder, relationship difficulties and complex psychological presentations. She considers how neurodevelopmental differences, lived experience, culture and relationships shape a person’s needs, sense of identity and emotional wellbeing.

She is the developer of Transformative Acculturation (TA), an evidence-informed framework arising from her doctoral research that explores how women navigate identity, agency, belonging and intimate relationships following violence, displacement and significant life change. Alongside her clinical practice, Dr King contributes to evidence-informed psychological care through research, writing and the development of practical frameworks that connect academic knowledge with clinical work.

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Clinical Work and Research in Belonging, Trauma, Neurodiversity, and Psychological Change

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My Latest Research

This website brings together my clinical writing, doctoral research, and professional reflections. The articles below are intended for readers who want psychologically informed, research-based discussion rather than simplified self-help content
Read the comprehensive Doctoral research on Transformative Acculturation at the University of Lancashire Repository

Gender-Based Violence, Domestic Violence and Transformative Acculturation | Dr Allison R. King

Abstract Existing acculturation frameworks do not adequately explain how trauma, gender-based violence (GBV), and host-country conditions can reshape the identity, autonomy, agency and intimate relationships of refugee women. Although Berry's (1997) bidimensional model explains acculturation through four strategies, and Bornstein's (2017) specificity principle identifies the factors that shape those processes, neither accounts for trauma-linked transformation.. Using interpr

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Gender-Based Violence, Domestic Violence and Transformative Acculturation | Dr Allison R. King

Belonging Without Disappearing - What masking, migration, faith and trauma can teach us about identity

Dr Allison King | Doctor of Psychology & Psychotherapy | Researcher How much of yourself have you changed in order to belong?It is a question most people have never been asked directly. Yet if you sit with it honestly, the answer is often: quite a lot. I have been thinking about this question for a long time first as a researcher, and more recently as a clinician. My doctoral research at the University of Central Lancashire involved listening, in depth, to refugee women rebu

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Belonging Without Disappearing - What masking, migration, faith and trauma can teach us about identity

Psychological Load, Identity Strain, and Emotional Dysregulation in High-Functioning Adults: A Clinical Framework

Introduction Why High-Functioning People Burn Out (Even When They’re Coping) Psychological distress is commonly conceptualised within discrete diagnostic categories, including anxiety, depression, and trauma-related disorders. However, such classifications may not adequately capture the complexity of individuals exposed to sustained and cumulative stressors. In particular, high-functioning adults often present with preserved external performance alongside internal dysregulati

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Psychological Load, Identity Strain, and Emotional Dysregulation in High-Functioning Adults: A Clinical Framework

How Trait Self-Control and Religiosity Relate to Trait Anxiety

Introduction (from my Masters in Psychology research) Trait anxiety refers to a relatively stable disposition to perceive situations as threatening and to respond with heightened worry and emotional reactivity across contexts (Spielberger, 1983). Elevated trait anxiety has been associated with impaired cognitive functioning, attentional bias towards threat, and increased vulnerability to psychological distress (Eysenck et al., 2007). Identifying factors that may reduce or reg

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How Trait Self-Control and Religiosity Relate to Trait Anxiety

Transformative Acculturation in the Context of Trauma and Gender-Based Violence

In my doctoral research, Transformative Acculturation: Identity, Relationships, and Adaptation Among Refugee Women in Switzerland (King, 2025), findings highlighted the need to extend existing acculturation frameworks to more fully account for the impact of pre-migration trauma, particularly gender-based violence (GBV), on post-migration adaptation. While Berry’s (1997) acculturation framework conceptualised acculturation through four strategies marginalisation, separation, i

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Transformative Acculturation in the Context of Trauma and Gender-Based Violence

Intersectionality and Women’s Psychological Experience: Beyond a Single-Axis Understanding

Intersectionality provides a critical analytic framework for understanding how women’s psychological experiences are shaped by the interaction of multiple, co-constitutive identity positions. First articulated by Crenshaw (1989), intersectionality challenges single-axis approaches to identity by demonstrating that social categories such as gender, race, class, and legal status do not operate independently but intersect to produce qualitatively distinct forms of marginalisatio

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Intersectionality and Women’s Psychological Experience: Beyond a Single-Axis Understanding

Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in the Lives of Migrant and Displaced Women

Sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) poses a serious threat to migrant, refugee, and forcibly displaced women, and these risks are often intensified by forced migration and displacement (UNHCR, 2022). The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that approximately one in three women globally have experienced physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime (WHO, 2021). For women affected by migration, displacement, and conf

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Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in the Lives of Migrant and Displaced Women

Family, Culture and Migrant Women: How Family Shapes Post-Migration Lives

In refugee contexts, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (2018) defines the family as a core unit of individuals connected by blood, marriage, or adoption, typically including spouses and children. For refugee women, family is not only a social structure but a primary site where cultural values, norms, and expectations are formed and reinforced. Pre-migration cultural frameworks are often shaped within the family, influencing women’s roles, identities, and perce

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Family, Culture and Migrant Women: How Family Shapes Post-Migration Lives

Moving Beyond Traditional Theoretical Frameworks

Women’s post-migration experiences are often described in terms of adjustment, integration, or adaptation. Yet these terms can oversimplify the complexity of what happens during acculturation. These realities shape how women experience belonging, identity, and safety in their new environments. However, traditional acculturation models do not always fully capture these experiences. This article draws on do ctoral research and the findings have international relevance and impli

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Moving Beyond Traditional Theoretical Frameworks

“You Are Always the Foreigner”

How Racism Shapes Migrant Women’s Lives Across Borders While much of my research has centered on refugee women’s post-migration experiences in Switzerland, the stories shared by participants reflect global patterns of racism and exclusion that cut across national borders. Whether in Bern, Brisbane, or Berlin, women with refugee backgrounds often face overt hostility, subtle discrimination, and systemic barriers that affect their sense of safety, belonging, and psychological w

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Grief, Loss, and Acculturation: Navigating the Hidden Emotional Journey of Migration

Migration is often spoken about in terms of opportunity, safety, or the possibility of a new beginning. Yet for many people, the reality is more complicated. Alongside hope and relief, there is another experience that is often less visible: grief. Whether someone has migrated voluntarily, under pressure, or through forced displacement, the emotional impact of leaving behind family, community, culture, and familiar routines can be profound. Grief in the context of migration is

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Grief, Loss, and Acculturation: Navigating the Hidden Emotional Journey of Migration

View all articles here

Support for ADHD- and autism-related presentations and associated difficulties, including emotion dysregulation, overload, burnout, stress intolerance, and self-organisation challenges. This area is informed by postgraduate and clinical research in neuroscience and clinical experience with neurodivergent populations.

Support for people experiencing relationship strain, separation, family tension, grief, or major life transition. The work attends to the interaction between interpersonal dynamics, emotional processing, and neurobiological regulation, with a focus on patterns that persist across contexts rather than isolated symptoms.

Psychological work for professionals and individuals managing sustained cognitive or emotional load. This includes burnout, decision fatigue, performance pressure, chronic stress, and the impact of organisational demands on functioning, wellbeing, and relationships.

Psychological work related to displacement, cultural transition, post-migration stress, identity disruption, loss of belonging, safety concerns, and relational change following migration. This area draws on doctoral research and the development of Transformative Acculturation (TA).

Clincial Approach
How I Work

Work with trauma-related presentations, including chronic threat responses, dissociation, grief, loss, and the longer-term psychological impact of abuse or gender-based violence. Interventions are trauma-informed and formulation-driven, drawing on cognitive-behavioural, DBT, ACT, psychodynamic, attachment-informed, and stabilisation-based approaches.

Assessment and Case Formulation

Structured assessment to identify the mechanisms maintaining distress, including trauma history, attachment and relational patterns, neurocognitive profile, stress physiology, and contextual influences. This is particularly relevant where presentations are complex, symptoms overlap, or standard diagnostic categories do not fully account for the clinical picture.

Gender-Based Violence, Domestic Violence and Transformative Acculturation | Dr Allison R. King

Belonging Without Disappearing - What masking, migration, faith and trauma can teach us about identity

Psychological Load, Identity Strain, and Emotional Dysregulation in High-Functioning Adults: A Clinical Framework

How Trait Self-Control and Religiosity Relate to Trait Anxiety

Transformative Acculturation in the Context of Trauma and Gender-Based Violence

Intersectionality and Women’s Psychological Experience: Beyond a Single-Axis Understanding

Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in the Lives of Migrant and Displaced Women

Family, Culture and Migrant Women: How Family Shapes Post-Migration Lives

Moving Beyond Traditional Theoretical Frameworks

“You Are Always the Foreigner”

Grief, Loss, and Acculturation: Navigating the Hidden Emotional Journey of Migration

Clincial Approach
How I Work

Assessment and Case Formulation

Neurodivergence, Executive Functioning, and Burnout

Trauma, Post-Traumatic Stress and Recovery After Violence

Attachment-Related and Relational Dysregulation

Occupational Stress, Leadership Strain, and Burnout

Acculturation, Migration, and Post-Migration Strain

Dr Allison R. King, PhD, MSc, MBA, MAICD, MBPsS

Gender-Based Violence, Domestic Violence and Transformative Acculturation | Dr Allison R. King

Belonging Without Disappearing - What masking, migration, faith and trauma can teach us about identity

Psychological Load, Identity Strain, and Emotional Dysregulation in High-Functioning Adults: A Clinical Framework

How Trait Self-Control and Religiosity Relate to Trait Anxiety

Transformative Acculturation in the Context of Trauma and Gender-Based Violence

Intersectionality and Women’s Psychological Experience: Beyond a Single-Axis Understanding

Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in the Lives of Migrant and Displaced Women

Family, Culture and Migrant Women: How Family Shapes Post-Migration Lives

Moving Beyond Traditional Theoretical Frameworks

“You Are Always the Foreigner”

Grief, Loss, and Acculturation: Navigating the Hidden Emotional Journey of Migration

Clincial Approach How I Work

Assessment and Case Formulation

Neurodivergence, Executive Functioning, and Burnout

Trauma, Post-Traumatic Stress and Recovery After Violence

Attachment-Related and Relational Dysregulation

Occupational Stress, Leadership Strain, and Burnout

Acculturation, Migration, and Post-Migration Strain

Dr Allison R. King, PhD, MSc, MBA, MAICD, MBPsS

Clincial Approach
How I Work