Sue and/or Prosecute Court Psychologists Whose Negligence/Incompetence Harms Families

“Dr. Brown did not review…records related to the family.  Dr. Brown didn’t see any of the children in either of the parties’ homes.  Dr. Brown didn’t talk to any school personnel.  Dr. Brown’s report didn’t mention one party’s criminal conviction.  Dr. Brown didn’t initially provide all of his file to [another doctor hired by one of the parties], despite court directives to do so.  Had the second party not hired another doctor and pursued review of Dr. Brown’s underlying files, the Court would have been led to believe that…his report was fairly comprehensive.  That is not our conclusion.”

Lying.  Ignoring court orders.  Rendering opinions not based on observation.  Psychologists and other mental health counselors employed or assigned by our family courts have the power to affect the lives of parents and children for better or worse.  As demonstrated by both the case above and in the following cases—which were uncovered by or reported to Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) in the past few years—these servants of the court frequently show themselves to be reckless and incompetent, making extremely questionable decisions, basing their decisions on second-hand observation or basing it on no observation at all.

Such destructive carelessness, which imperils the already damaged integrity of a broken family, should be fully prosecuted and/or civil remedy should be sought.

Individuals and families wronged in this way by a mental health practitioner should file criminal charges for “perjury,” “false swearing” or “filing a false report,” where applicable and should at the very least file a documented complaint with the practitioner’s licensing body (state medical or psychology board).

EXAMPLES

May 14, 2009: Colorado clinical social worker JOANNE BAUM was placed on probation for one year, having been found by the state to have acted in a manner that does not meet generally accepted professional standards of practice by writing a letter that contained judgments concerning a person she had never met and published recommendations regarding child custody issues without having full knowledge of the facts necessary to make such recommendations.¹

October 16, 2008: the California Board of Psychology revoked DIANA M. ELLIOTT’s license for failure to comply with the terms of an earlier probation order against her.  In March 2004, the Board charged Elliott with gross negligence, dishonesty and repeated negligent acts related to her testimony in a divorce matter in which she reported the results of psychological tests according to her memory, which was later discovered to be faulty (did not correspond to the actual answer sheets she had on file) and that in response to the trial court’s order for her to send the original answer sheets to the father’s expert, she sent copies which were altered to make the father look more disturbed and mother look healthier than the actual answer sheets did.  Elliott has changed the test score answers. Lastly, Elliott failed to inform the court that the father was administered the test via an interpreter and failed to inform the court that her testimony was based on inaccurate information; her inaccurate testimony adversely affected the ability of the court to make an assessment of the child custody issues.  As a result, Elliott was placed on probation for three years with terms and conditions.²

August 6, 2008: The Colorado State Board of Psychologist Examiners publicly admonished E. ROBERT LACROSSE for making custody recommendations without doing complete evaluations or interviewing all parties.³

June 21, 2008: The California Board of Psychology placed JANIS FOOTE on five years probation for negligent acts and general unprofessional conduct.  Foote provided a custody recommendation to the court after having interviewed her patient's three children without the knowledge or consent of the other parent (who shared joint custody of the children) and made evaluations against the other parent without ever having met him or observed him directly.⁴

In March 2008, Ohio psychologist MERYL A. ORLANDO was suspended for 30 days and placed on 24 months of restricted practice, during which the court prohibited her from providing testimony in any cases involving custody or parental rights in any Ohio court or other adjudicative body.  Orlando was found to have engaged in negligent conduct by rendering a legal opinion regarding a father’s continued involvement with his children, despite having not observed the father’s interaction with the children and for recommending that the father be named legal custodian of the children, based in part on her opinion that the mother had sabotaged the childrens’ relationships with the father, among other things.⁵

January 31, 2008: The Oregon Board of Psychologist Examiners found that GARY L. GREGOR committed unprofessional conduct in a custody evaluation that included failing to take reasonable steps to avoid harm in regard to the child and mother; failed to recognize his own possible bias and failed to resolve the matter with due regard for the best interests of the mother and father (both clients) and the child.  Gregor surrendered his license while under investigation (not a final decision) and the Board has proposed restricting him from performing child custody evaluations or parenting plans, among other conditions.⁶

October 25, 2007: The Virginia Board of Psychology put JOSEPH CONLEY, JR. on indefinite probation of no less than 18 months.  Conley was found to have violated several state regulations while conducting evaluations in a child-custody case when he made an "inflammatory appraisal" of the mother (who he had never met) as well as a written evaluation that demonstrated "a bias against the mother, without substantiation by corroborating evidence."⁷

July 20, 2007: The Ohio Counselor, Social Worker & Marriage & Family Therapist Board suspended social worker JOANN KUREK for three months.  Board documents state that Kurek “failed to maintain the appropriate standards of care…by rendering a biased opinion about a minor client’s father without ever performing as assessment of him” but based on the opinions of the minor’s court-appointed guardian.⁸

November 27, 2006: The Pennsylvania Board of Psychology reprimanded PHILIP J. KINNEY and assessed him a $2,500 civil penalty.  The Board found that Kinney’s findings in forensic child custody evaluations were not based on sufficient techniques or information.  For instance, he made statements about a mother and her ability to parent without having conducted any examination of her; failed to maintain an objective and impartial stance in his evaluation of the child; failed to obtain informed consent from all adult participants prior to performing a custody evaluation on the child and over-interpreted or inappropriately interpreted clinical assessment data.⁹

July 20, 2006: The Idaho Board of Psychologist Examiners disciplined CHARLES W. GAMBLE for several counts of failure to provide a proper child custody evaluation in a divorce dispute.  The Board put his license on 12 months probation and ordered him to cease providing such evaluations.¹⁰

June 29, 2006: New Hampshire mental health counselor BRENDA DESMARIS was disciplined by the state Board of Mental Health Practice for sending the court a report on a child’s condition without first getting a release from the child’s parents and advocated that the child’s visitation with the father be suspended.  She was placed on practice monitoring for one year, as well as continuing education in divorce and custody, risk management and role confusion.¹¹

June 20, 2006: South Carolina psychologist ANDREW B. MCGARITY voluntarily surrendered his license to the state psychology board, following an earlier disciplinary action which he failed to comply with.  The earlier action was the result of 2003 board findings that McGarity had performed a custody evaluation that “failed to meet the generally accepted standard of care normally expected of clinical psychologists….”  In a custody evaluation incident to a divorce proceeding, McGarity failed to evaluate the children or the individual parents’ interactions with them before recommending which parent should be awarded custody.  Additionally, in December 2005, the State of California revoked his license to practice psychology.¹²

February 10, 2006: The Arizona Medical Board found psychiatrist HOWARD L. MITCHELL guilty of, among other things, ignoring data when evaluating a patient; making a custody recommendation without an appropriate evaluation and making false statements in a patient evaluation.  Specifically, Mitchell conducted a psychiatric evaluation and made custody recommendations that neglected to consider domestic violence findings and made his recommendations after interviewing only the father—not the mother or the child.  He was put on one year of probation with conditions.¹³

January 2, 2006: The Psychology Board of Ohio suspended JOSEPH JOHN BENDO for one year (60 days active suspension and the remainder stayed).  The board found that Bendo had testified in a divorce/custody dispute involving a married couple he had counseled two years earlier.  In the court setting (for which he “agreed that his conduct…reflected a lack of a fundamental…understanding of the legal and professional standards of care that govern the participation of psychological experts in legal proceedings”), Bendo released confidential information on one of the patients to the attorneys of the opposing patient, despite never having secured express written permission from the former patient to reveal such data, in an effort to “influence the legal system” in favor of the opposing party.  In addition to active suspension, Bendo was permanently “prohibited from rendering in writing or by testimony any hypotheses, impressions, diagnostic suppositions, or other professional opinions to any adjudicative body, including administrative agencies and any court or agent of any court in the State of Ohio, relative to parenting, parenting time, or the allocation of parental rights and responsibilities.”¹⁴

November 2005: Psychologist MICHAEL CARLIN was suspended for two years by the British Psychological Society.  Carlin, who did not have the two years' supervised experience needed to act as a forensic psychologist, was found guilty of professional misconduct for having submitted forensic reports in two instances, including a child rape case.¹⁵

February 2003: Ohio psychologist ROGER H. FISHER surrendered his license while under investigation by the State Board of Psychology for acts of negligence and incompetence in the conduct of psychological services to children, couples and families involved in domestic relations matters.  In June 2001, Fisher was placed on permanent restriction from rendering services as an expert or evaluator in domestic relations courts, regarding custody, parenting or visitation, based on a complaint filed by a mother alleging that Fisher authored a report strongly biased against her based solely on a single session evaluation of her 5-year, 9-month-old son, at the father’s behest.  The report, which questioned the mother’s fitness to parent and commented on her “personality changes,” “mood swings,” and allegedly bizarre behavior, was based only on the son and father’s information.  Between March and June 2002, the Board received four separate additional complaints of negligence and incompetence from parents to whom Fisher had rendered forensic psychological services in domestic matters.  The surrender was deemed a permanent revocation.¹⁶

Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS)

PAS is an alleged (and thoroughly discredited) “mental disorder” applied to one parent in a divorce-custody matter by the opposing party’s psychological expert in the following manner: “The child(ren) are fearful of or angry at Parent B (my client).  It appears that Parent A has been telling the child(ren) negative things about my client in an effort to make the child(ren) fear my client, refuse visitation with him, etc.  These efforts are proof that Parent A has PAS and so should not have custody of the child(ren).”

Use of this “diagnosis” sometimes obscures the fact that there may be documented reasons or logical foundations for the child(ren)’s fears or the parent’s concern, such as actual sexual abuse, domestic violence or the opposing parent’s criminal record.

PAS has never been validated by any official body and, on the contrary, has been invalidated by numerous authorities, including the American Psychological Association, which stated:

“Custody and visitation disputes appear to occur more frequently when there is a history of domestic violence.  Family courts often do not consider the history of violence between the parents in making custody and visitation decisions.  In this context, the non-violent parent may be at a disadvantage and behavior that would seem reasonable as a protection from abuse may be misinterpreted as a sign of instability.  Terms such as ‘parental alienation’ may be used to blame the women for the children’s reasonable fear or anger toward their violent father.”¹⁷

Dr. Paul Fink of Temple University's School of Medicine, called the theory dangerous:  "It was made up by one guy who spread it around.  No investigation was done, there was no research, and it's hurt a lot of women and children."¹⁸

CASES

March 3, 2008: The Psychologists Board of Queensland (Australia) disciplined WILLIAM WRIGLEY, declaring that he acted unprofessionally in giving evidence about "parental alienation syndrome" to the court.  An investigation of Wrigley found that his evidence in a case three years earlier, which led to a mother losing custody of her two children, constituted "conduct that demonstrates incompetence or a lack of adequate knowledge, skill, judgment or care."  The judge in the case stated, "It has to be said that in terms of objectivity, professionalism, fairness and balance, his reports are in stark contrast to those provided by (other professionals)."  The board advised Wrigley of its unanimous decision that he had "acted in a way that constituted unsatisfactory conduct" for "referring to an unrecognized syndrome in his reports.  It was inappropriate for [Wrigley] to either diagnose the children or state there was a likelihood the children could develop parental alienation syndrome, as it is not a recognized syndrome.  To diagnose a patient as suffering from or demonstrating a potential to develop an unrecognized syndrome is contrary to the code of ethics."¹⁹

In December 2003, the Ohio State Board of Psychology filed 11 allegations against DOUGLAS C. DARNALL, in addition to complaints filed against him in 2002 by five former clients.  Many of the complaints accused Darnall of using the diagnosis of parental alienation syndrome to classify parents’ behavior and using a non-published test—the “parental alienation scale”—to form conclusions in psychological assessment, which the state says contradicts the standards for psychological testing.  One of the complaints alleged that Darnall conducted an evaluation of a client and her ex-husband to provide the court a child visitation recommendation without ever meeting the children, according to the state’s document.  The state charged Darnall with requiring clients to complete his nonvalidated “parental alienation scale” as part of their evaluation; warning parents that their evaluation would not be completed if they did not fill out the scale and that the judge would be notified and making at least one custody recommendation without adequately gathering information from clients, among others.  The board issued a disciplinary action against Darnall in April 2005, which was appealed.  The board ultimately voided its disciplinary decision and dismissed the charges against him in an August 2005 settlement that required him obtain 15 hours of continuing education in forensic psychological practice and tutorial direction from a board-approved supervisor in identifying risk factors/avoiding loss of objectivity in litigation-related evaluations of children. ²⁰

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Parents who have been wronged, their children’s safety and their family’s stability further damaged by the “work” of a careless or incompetent psychologist or psychiatrist, can contact CCHR for possible assistance with their complaint.

Attorneys and others are also welcome to contact CCHR for additional data on PAS, bogus psychiatric diagnoses in general and other data pertinent to civil or criminal matters involving psychiatric abuses.

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