In Ireland’s small but crucial community of credibility assessment professionals, Deborah Van Coller has established herself as a benchmark for what proper training and ethical practice should look like. Since 2009, she’s built a career that demonstrates why rigorous standards matter in a field where the stakes—for clients—are often extraordinarily high.
A Foundation Built on Serious Training
Van Coller’s path into forensic psychophysiology began at the American International Institute of Polygraph, where she completed comprehensive training in the psychophysiological detection of deception. This wasn’t a weekend course or online certification—it was months of intensive study covering physiological psychology, instrumentation, questioning techniques, countermeasure detection, and professional ethics.
The difference matters. Properly trained polygraph examiners don’t just operate equipment; they understand the psychophysiological principles underlying the work, the psychology of interviewing, and the ethical responsibilities that come with making credibility assessments in matters that can profoundly affect people’s lives.
Her expertise is formally recognised through accreditation with both the American Polygraph Association (APA) and the British and European Polygraph Association (BEPA)—two of the profession’s most respected bodies. These aren’t ceremonial memberships; they require demonstrated competence, adherence to validated techniques, and ongoing professional development.
Meeting Ireland’s Need for Qualified Services
When Van Coller established her practice, Ireland had limited access to properly qualified credibility assessment services. Yet the demand was significant: solicitors needed reliable methods for evaluating client statements, businesses required tools for investigating theft and fraud, and private individuals—often in crisis—sought trustworthy ways to resolve disputes about infidelity, false accusations, or family conflicts.
Her work spans this full spectrum, from relationship disputes to employment screening, always conducted according to international professional standards. This matters particularly in Ireland, where the regulatory framework for credibility assessment remains less developed than in some other jurisdictions.
Why Professional Standards Matter
What distinguishes qualified practitioners like Van Coller from the growing number of minimally trained operators is straightforward: depth of understanding and accountability.
Modern polygraph examination combines physiological monitoring (cardiovascular, respiratory, and electrodermal responses), validated questioning techniques developed through decades of research, behavioural observation, and statistical evaluation. Research spanning over 50 years indicates that properly administered examinations achieve 90-95% accuracy when conducted by trained, accredited examiners.
But “properly administered” is doing heavy lifting in that sentence. It requires understanding psychophysiology, recognising countermeasures, conducting effective interviews, and interpreting results within appropriate context—expertise that cannot be acquired in a few hours of online videos.
Van Coller’s dual accreditations ensure she remains connected to current research, methodological developments, and peer review processes. This ongoing engagement with the broader professional community helps maintain quality and keeps practice aligned with evolving standards.
Breaking Ground as a Female Examiner
Van Coller’s presence in the field carries additional significance. Forensic psychophysiology, like many forensic sciences, has historically been male-dominated. Her success challenges outdated assumptions whilst providing practical benefits—many clients, particularly in sensitive cases, specifically prefer working with a female examiner.
Her career also provides tangible evidence for young women considering forensic science or psychology careers that these paths are open and achievable. Representation matters, particularly in specialised fields where women have been historically underrepresented.
The Ethical Imperative
Perhaps what most distinguishes Van Coller’s practice is evident commitment to ethical conduct. Polygraph services attract vulnerable clients—people facing relationship breakdowns, false accusations, family conflicts. This creates obvious potential for exploitation by unscrupulous practitioners.
Responsible examiners respond with appropriate restraint: providing realistic information about capabilities and limitations, declining inappropriate cases, maintaining strict confidentiality, avoiding conflicts of interest, and ensuring informed consent. Her professional accreditations require adherence to comprehensive ethical codes governing precisely these issues.
The Current Challenge: Maintaining Quality
Van Coller’s career unfolds against concerning industry trends. The proliferation of automated systems offering rapid “examiner certification” through brief online courses has created public confusion about what constitutes legitimate expertise.
Some newer technologies require virtually no training in psychophysiology or psychology, no supervised practice, no internship. Operators can complete “certification” in hours rather than months, then immediately begin offering services to vulnerable clients who often cannot distinguish between properly trained examiners and minimally qualified operators.
This makes Van Coller’s approach—extensive training, recognised accreditations, commitment to ongoing education—all the more valuable. Clients working with her receive services grounded in scientific research and delivered according to international protocols, not merely automated outputs from systems neither examiner nor client fully understands.
A Model Worth Following
Deborah Van Coller’s career demonstrates what credibility assessment practice should be: scientifically grounded, ethically conducted, professionally accountable, and delivered by properly trained practitioners.
In a field where exaggerated claims and minimal qualifications too often meet desperate clients, her work provides an important counter-example. She shows that rigorous professional standards remain both achievable and essential—that quality requires substantial training, recognised accreditation, and respect for the science underlying the practice.
For clients seeking credibility assessment in Ireland, she represents the standard against which other providers should be measured. For the profession itself, she exemplifies the commitment to quality and ethics necessary to maintain public trust.
And for those entering the field—particularly women—she demonstrates that expertise, integrity, and professional excellence create clear paths to success, even in traditionally male-dominated disciplines.