Another kooky evaluator

A reader sent me an court-ordered evaluation from "Ariana Sarris, LMFT, Family Law Investigator". It is just as sloppy and incompetent and mine. It says:

The other issue that is very significant here is Father's depression. He has clearly been in a depression for several years. His motivation to work has been impaired by this depression. He needs to get psychiatric evaluation for appropriate antidepressants, as well as go to counseling. Counseling alone is not helpful here, He needs the medication. This is very important because being home alone with his son at school much of the day will only enhance his isolation which Mother was concerned about.

The amazing thing here is that a court bureaucrat, who is not even a psychiatrist or a psychologist, claims to have made a determination for the necessity of psychiatric drugs, without any examination or expertise. Her basis is just the Mother's gripes about him and his child care, and this info from a child psychologist:

Tony Hoffman, Ph.D.: Dr. Hoffman was called regarding Rex [age 8.75, name changed]. He indicated that he had worked with the parents while they were still trying to reconcile and afterward. He had just seen Rex. He said that he had seen Rex occasionally until the interview with me. Both parents had assured him that Rex was handling the situation well, but on that morning, before the interview, both emailed him with concerns about his well being. After the interview, both emailed him distraught about Rex. Dr. Hoffman has seen him since. Dr. Hoffman suggested that it was best that both boys go with Mother because he felt that Father is depressed, he has guns in his house, and he is doing good parenting now to win, and to get Mother. He questioned the quality of Father's attachment to his children. He also said that Mother was looking into a private school for Rex, but can't afford it at this time. In the meantime the schools in the Hollister/Salinas area were very good out in the rural areas.

Now Hoffman really is a psychologist, I guess, but his report appears to be remarkably incompetent, based on this summary. He was called to get info about the child Rex, and he says nothing useful about Rex. Instead he offers an assortment of unsupported opinions about Father. He says that Father is "depressed", but it is not clear whether he had made a clinical diagnosis, or whether he had even treated Father. He offers opinions on guns and rural schools that are almost certainly outside his expertise and irrelevant to the evaluation.

The Father said that he confronted Dr. Hoffman, and he denied giving some of the above opinions. But he also refused to supply a written correction to the court. So it is impossible to say what Tony Hoffman really told Ariana Sarris, but it seems likely that both of them are so incompetent and unethical that they should lose their licenses. I just don't see any innocent explanation for these statements.