DR JULIA Lam is only 1.53m tall, but she has come face to face with a serial killer, child molesters and drug offenders.

Once, a prisoner even threatened to bash her up.

Thankfully, this petite, soft-spoken psychologist wasn't harmed.

Dr Lam, 38, who has two master's degrees and a doctorate in forensic psychology, is currently a psychology lecturer at James Cook University (JCU) Singapore.

She came to Singapore from Sydney about two months ago.

Her experience with the prisoners was in 2005 when she worked in Melbourne on a five-month attachment.

Dr Lam, who hails from Hong Kong, recalled: 'I was the co-facilitator of two programmes for prisoners. One was for anger management and the other, for anxiety management.

'There was a serial killer in one of the groups. He had killed several young girls.

'But he looked very normal.'

She said that he was such a 'good prisoner' that he even got privileges such as a computer in his cell.

Quite often, she said, such prisoners cannot explain why they committed the crimes but they would have suffered some kind of abuse when they were young.

She also had to counsel child molesters and she said: 'They are usually timid men, but they would ask me inappropriate questions, such as 'Are you married?'

Her curt reply to them: 'These are irrelevant questions.'

And though she is not married, she wears a silver band on the fourth finger of her right hand, just to fend off the questions.

Dr Lam said that one day, she was walking past two prisoners who were arguing and one of them complained to her about the other.

She replied that she could do 'nothing' about his complaint and the prisoner then said: 'I'm going to bash you up.'

Heart in her mouth, she quickly walked away.

'I was praying very hard,' she said. The man did not hurt her in the end.

Apart from prisoners, Dr Lam has also worked with gambling addicts and mental health patients.

Of her work, she said: 'I derive satisfaction from seeing clients change or improve.'

SATISFACTION

For example, when she was working at the Gambling Treatment Clinic at Sydney University, she said their solution for the client was not to 'ban' gambling.

'The client was allowed to choose between abstinence and controlled gambling.

'Any improvement in terms of amount of money and time spent on gambling, which meant the client had progressed, would give me satisfaction.

'And I'd know that I did make a difference in my clients' lives - that's what makes a psychologist's work meaningful.'

Dr Lam, who was lecturing at the University of Hong Kong, said that she enjoys teaching and 'passing on her knowledge to others'.

She pointed out that JCU's undergraduate psychology courses are fully accredited by the Australian Psychology Accreditation Council, which means that a bachelor's degree graduate can pursue further studies in Australia and be fully registered there after obtaining a master's degree or higher.

One of her students here, Miss M Y Wong, 37, is pursuing her doctoral studies in clinical psychology.

Miss Wong, who has a master's degree from Nottingham University and another from the National Institute of Education here, said that the JCU doctoral programme is 'very rigorous'.

She started on her doctorate programme in August 2006 and hopes to be able to complete it by mid-2010.

She chose to pursue her PhD at JCU, she said, because at that time, it was the only programme in Singapore that had the Australian professional accreditation for those who are training to become clinical psychologists.

She added: 'That's something that many of us who come into this programme value.'

This article was first published in The New Paper on June 10, 2008.