Dr. Linda Abeles, Ph.D., Licensed Psychologist

Linda Abeles, Ph.D., is a Licensed Psychologist who has been providing psychological assessment, consultation, and treatment services for more than three decades. She earned her Ph.D. in Clinical and Health Psychology from the University of Florida and has served as a psychologist with Village Counseling Center since 2009. From 2012 to 2025, Dr. Abeles also served as a psychologist with the University of Florida Child Protection Team, where her work focused extensively on children and families involved in the child welfare system. Over the course of her career, she has completed thousands of evaluations involving child abuse and neglect, parenting ability, domestic violence, mental illness, learning disabilities, and other complex behavioral health concerns. She has also held leadership positions directing inpatient, outpatient, forensic, detoxification, and partial hospitalization services and has maintained a long-standing academic affiliation with the University of Florida, including serving as a Courtesy Assistant Professor in the Department of Clinical and Health Psychology.

Dr. Abeles brings substantial experience working with the courts, child protection system, and families involved in dependency and other legal proceedings. She has conducted hundreds of competency and sanity evaluations, approximately 200 Baker Act evaluations, thousands of assessments involving alleged child victims and caregivers, and has testified in approximately 450 cases. She has been qualified as an expert in areas including child abuse and neglect, parenting ability, child custody, sexual abuse, juvenile delinquency, forensic competency and sanity evaluations, attachment disorders, learning disabilities, and psychosexual disorders. In addition to her clinical and forensic work, Dr. Abeles has contributed to professional publications and presentations in child and family psychology and has completed specialized adult and child forensic examiner training. Throughout her career, she has remained deeply committed to helping courts, child welfare professionals, caregivers, and community partners better understand the needs of children and families and to supporting decisions that promote safety, stability, healthy development, and long-term well-being.