Psychological Reports: Part 1

[SageDad]

The second evaluation was conducted in the manner that Carlos indicated as appropriate, and the children were interviewed separately, but there was a MAJOR bias in her conclusions that I will discuss when I have the energy to detail the report. For this reason, I think that the first one was much better.

I just reread what I wrote.. "Psycholgical exams of children should be done without the parents, with each parent seperately and then with eveyone together." and realized it's not really clear when I say "with each parent seperately".  What I meant was that the child(ren) should be evaluated with each parent seperately to observe their interactions.  Not each parent by themselves.

I know you are concerned that they will order new evaluations but I don't think that that is legal.  Your wife and her attorney ordered them to create evidence against you.  As such it was in their best interest to have complete, unbiased, professional evaluations.  They cannot (or at least should not) be able to hire someone to do half-assed evaluations and then argue that new ones should be done when they are thrown out.

In my case my wife hired some hack that would say anything they wanted and he turned in a heaping pile of poo that attacked me on everything.  We objected pointing out a mountain of biased, unsupportable statements and all the obvious flaws in its methodology.  Even though the judge ruled against me in the end she completely threw out the evaluation of that psychologist for being "incomplete", but that does not open the door for my wife to request another one during the appeal.  It just means that nothing that psychologist claims can be considered as evidence against me.  If she wanted to avoid that she should have hired someone to do a fair evaluation in the first place (though, in my case, that would have hurt her even more and costed a lot more money).

[sue]

Who is paying for her attorney?

[tweinstein]

Who is paying for her attorney?

Definitely not me!:D I think that she is getting some type of "family discount" because I learned recently that her attorney is actually her second cousin. Furthermore, and I may stand to be corrected, but I believe that in Brazil, you do not pay by the hour. Rather, you pay by the case. So it doesn't really matter to her what transpires, the bill is already paid.

[Isabel]

Tim,
 
I'm really sorry for what is happening. I too find it very strange that a psychologist would allow the mother present during these questions. A few months after I separated I requested that my children be evaluated, not for court purposes, but for my own peace of mind and to find out if they were more affected by my separation than I might think. My children were at the time only 3 years old and didn't speak very clearly yet. Nevertheless, I was not present when the psychologist spoke and played with them.
 
It seems very strange that your wife was allowed to be present. It would be interesting to see what that psychologist's curriculum is like. Just as in all other professions, there are good psychologists and not so good psychologists. If I were you, I would certainly look into this.
 
Try to stay strong, Tim, for your children and for yourself.
 
If I can help you in any way, you know how to reach me.

[Sashia]

Wow, I was researching the interviewing of child victims of parental abductions looking for any precedent set regarding the procedure, and I stumbled across this pdf of a case that began in 1993.
Eerily similar. I can't find if there was ever a resolution, but the kids would be grown now....
 
http://www.pact-online.org/pdf/adjourn_debate.pdf
 
 
and another write up which condems child abduction and the alienation which is part of it as child abuse. It questions whether Article 13 (b) actually creates a loophole for Parental Alienation.
http://www.pact-online.org/pdf/pas.pdf

[tweinstein]

I spent about 4 hours today wading through 19 pages of Portuguese and writing a rebuttal to the second evaluation. I'm not sure what good it will do, but I must do something at every opportunity I have. I need to edit my rebuttal for posting here. I'll probably post it tomorrow.

[sue]

When did the judge get this evaluation?

[tweinstein]

When did the judge get this evaluation?

Roughly the beginning of March, though the BCA just wrote their rebuttal last week. Nothing moves at a normal speed. It would have been nice if the BCA consulted with me before writing their rebuttal.

[sue]

It took this long for a psychologist to get this to a judge?  Can you demand that this be done again with you present as well?  I would love to hear what they write about your son, he misses his dad and wants to come home.  Also, he now knows what is going on.  I suppose that would drag things out even longer and that is not what you want.  It's not sounding like the exposure from David is doing anything for the other LBP.  Would you like us to all start writing on your behalf?  There has got to be something we can do to help.

[QuenbyWilcox]

I myself am in a custody battle against for my children in Spain. You can find information about my particular case by googling my name, and if you know any journalists ask them to please help me. However, I have been studying case after case for the past 2 years, and what is going on in divorce courts, whether they be over intl. cases or not is a travesty of justice. Pls. go to www.stopthetortureandgenocide.blogspot.com copy, sign and send the ltrs. to your Reps in Washington and to whom they are addressed. The US govt., nor any govts. are taking this job seriously with civil servants just pushing paperwork around to appease people.

[tweinstein]

The US govt., nor any govts. are taking this job seriously with civil servants just pushing paperwork around to appease people.

I don't think you'll find many people in this forum who would disagree with you on this one.

[Celita]

They are a kind of profissional that need to have five years bachelor degree plus practice (clinic) . Those kind are not private pro, but people that passed with high score in a exam (selection through examination : all the subjects plus skills.
 

Can anyone remind me what qualifies someone as a "psychologist" in Brazil? In Mexico it's a bachelor's degree.. which wouldn't qualify you to be a school counselor in the US, much less a clinical psychologist capable of providing expert testimony in a court of law. I remember saying a lot of this here before and was told that Brazil had lots of mechanism's to guarrantee honesty and ethics from psychologists.. not that I believed it. We have plenty of problems with pyschologists testifying to finding what they're paid to find in the US, even with the extremely high standards and legal accountability that exists here.
 
I'm sorry that these evaluations were not as favorable as they should have been, but I'm not surprised by it. Take it with a grain of salt though since the judges all know that they ussually go this way and the AGU should be used to countering these types of evaluations. The standard for denying returns under the the HC are specifically set high to avoid denying returns based on what should be considered "normal" risks of psychological harm, rather than "grave" ones.
 
I'm also sick to death of psychologists arguing of the harm that children could suffer by being separated from their mother. Returning children to the US is not separating them from their mother and, in fact, has no relation to the matter being litigated. She can come back to the US to still be with them and can litigate custody here. The only way that argument would make sense is if the mother argued she would abandon her children if they were returned.. In which case she'd have to be a poor mother to begin with.
 
Psycholgical exams of children should be done without the parents, with each parent seperately and then with eveyone together. On average in the US, custody proceedings take 26.2 hours of interviewing, observation and testing of the parents and children. Not sure how long they spent on yours, but mine lasted exactly one hour. Furthermore, you are absolutely right and so was the AGU attorney. Doing a living evironment evaluation by a social worker has no value whatsoever if they only do it in Brazil. How can they draw any valid conclusions from it if they do not also do a comparable one in the US?