Value of psychological tests

I should be soon getting the results of my latest batch of psychological tests. The value of these tests is marginal.

The advantage of the tests is that they seem to be an objective measure of the parent's psychological well-being, and such measures are otherwise difficult for the court to judge. There is a substantial body of academic literature on these tests that go back many years. Expert psychologists administer the tests, and they seem scientific and reliable. Of course anything would seem scientific and reliable compared to the factors that the court usually considers in a custody case.

There are a couple of serious flaws with the whole approach. First, the psychological tests are scored purely in terms of correlations. The test administrators have a huge database on the sorts of answers that are given by various sorts of people. The tests have a lot of innocuous questions. There might be a few questions about suicide or something else that might be a direct tipoff to a psychological disorder, but most of them could be answered true or false without implying any mental problem.

The tests are scored by looking at correlations between groups of answers and patterns in the database that are known to be related to particular conditions. For example, maybe depressed people taking the test commonly say that they don't sleep well at night and they worry about stomachaches. (I am just making this up; I have no idea how depressed people would answer these questions.) So if you take the test and you say you don't sleep well at night and you worry about stomachaches, then that might be an unusual combination that would suggest that you suffer from depression. It doesn't prove anything, but it suggests a probability based on statistical data.

So the problem is that the tests don't really diagnose anything. They are mainly just useful as screening devices. If the test suggests that the patient is depressed, then the psychologist still has do interviews and maybe collect other data to make a diagnosis.

The test is a little like security personel looking to see if you match a profile. You are not guilty of anything just because you match a profile, but the security folks will think that there is a probability of a problem that merits further scrutiny.

The second big problem with the tests is that there is virtually no scientific literature relating test results with parenting capacity. The tests were not created for use in family court, and none of the questions involve parenting. Nobody knows what answers correlate with good parenting, and what patterns do not. One could reasonably infer that a high-anxiety suicidal alcoholic schizophrenic might not be a good parent, but the test data don't really measure that.

My hunch is that the tests only produce significant info in less that 5% of the custody cases. I doubt that many schizophrenics get this far in a custody dispute anyway. A test may indicate personality characteristics, such as whether someone is introverted or extroverted, but no one knows whether introverts or extroverts make better parents.

I have a court order for Dr. Inkblot to look for psychological disorders, so that is why he is doing the tests. Why the judge made the order, I don't know. Whether the results will be of any use in the case, remains to be seen.

Index for this site

My ex-wife wrote the following index of this blog for Dr. Inkblot.

Names Identified and Corresponding Web Page Dates

Jennifer Gray (my attorney): Oct. '04-10,16,22; Feb. '05-17; May '05.-4, 20, 30; June '05-27, 28, 30; July '05-7, 25, 29; Aug. '05-4, 6.

Bruce Travers (a.k.a. boyfriend, and later named on May 30, '05): Feb. '05-16; April '05¬29; May '05-6, 15, 30; June '05-23; July '5-25; Aug. '05-5.

Tony Eberwein (my father): Oct. '04-12; May '05-4.

Dr. Bret Johnson (Court Evaluator): Nov. '04-6, 7; Feb '05-15, 23, 25; May '05-8; June '05-4, 7; Aug. '05-4.

Dr. Melissa Berrenge (Court Mediator): Feb. '05-15.

Dr. Jason Camera (witness): Mar. '05-26; June '05-28.

Maria Agnes M. (witness): June '05-14.

Michaela (babysitter): May '05-15.

Judge Thomas E. Kelly (1st Judge): May '05-27; July '05-4; Aug. '05-3, 4.

Judge William Kelsey (2nd Judge): Nov. '04-16,17.

Irwin H. Joseph (a.k.a. Junk Justice Joseph 3rd and Current Judge): June '05-29; July '05-27, 29; Aug. '05-3, 4, 7.

Dr. Igor Inkblot (...): Aug. '05-1, 2, 4, 6, 7. See also Nov. '04-21.

I guess she realized that he'd be overwhelmed by all the pages, and wanted to make it easier for him to look up postings. I think that he will have a better understanding of this case, if he actually reads all this stuff.

It is curious that she acknowledges that Bruce Travers is her boyfriend. She also gave Dr. Inkblot some papers in which she denied that she had a boyfriend.

Some psychologists are bad news

Someone suggested a reason for my ex-wife submitting a printout of this blog to the court-appointed psychologist. He said that I've made some disparaging remarks about psychologists here, and that my ex-wife is hoping that Dr. Inkblot may take personal offense and write a bad report about me as a way of punishing me.

I hope not. Dr. Inkblot seems more professional than that.

I don't think that all of the folks who write reports for the family court are bad. I mainly know about the six that I have seen. The one before Dr. Inkblot wrote a pretty good report. She was appointed by the court, and she said that I was an excellent father who should immediately get my kids back. A couple of the others were extremely professional, and wrote solid reports. I haven't attacked them.

The worst report was from Dr. Bret K. Johnson. Johnson describes himself as an "out gay man" and his specialty is in helping gay men get out of the closet. He wrote a self-help book on the subject, and he has a lot of kooky views. As far as I have been able to determine, he has no experience or expertise at all in marriage, child-rearing, parenting, child custody, child psychology, or any other related subject.

Dr. Johnson interviewed me for an hour, my ex-wife for an hour, and the kids for about 20 minutes each. He asked me a bunch of mundane and trivial questions such as whether I brush their teeth or clean the house. About half-way thru, I remarked that he hadn't asked me anything about my ex-wife's allegations. I suggested that he take a couple of her most serious allegations, tell me his concerns, and let me respond. He refused. In retrospect, it seems clear that he had his mind made up, and had no interest in the facts. I wonder whether he is even capable of discussing a child-rearing issue.

Dr. Johnson is a fussy gay man who seemed more interested in hair and food than anything else. He made a derogatory comment about my own hair at the start of the interview. His written report mentioned hair 8 times. He was also preoccupied with the fact that I sometimes fed the kids oatmeal for breakfast, and broccoli as the dinner vegetable. He seemed to think that there was something bad about oatmeal and broccoli, and his report mentioned them 7 times. I could never figure out what he had against oatmeal and broccoli. These are good and healthy foods, and the kids like them.

I later learned that Dr. Johnson has a personal hatred for my mom.

I plan to write an essay detailing what was wrong with Dr. Johnson's report. It will be a long essay. It is my opinion that Dr. Johnson should never be allowed to testify in family court, and that he should never be allowed near children.

Dr. Johnson never found anything substantive against me. His recommendation 6D was:

Alternatively, with the parents' agreement, they may wish to consider a 5-2-2-5 joint time share, with Father being responsible for the children every Monday and Tuesday and Mother being responsible for the children every Wednesday and Thursday.

He couldn't have thought that I was that bad of a father, if he recommended 50-50 time share. Nevertheless, Judge Kelsay used his report as an excuse to take away the kids, without any hearing.

So, yes, I have a low opinion of some psychologists. I also have a low opinion of whatever oversight the court uses, because it is continuing to allow Dr. Johnson to ruin people's lives.

Soldier gets punished by family court

Michigan news:

Two nationally syndicated news shows - one radio, one television - are working on stories about Army National Guard Spc. Joe McNeilly of Grand Ledge.

McNeilly says he lost custody of his 10-year-old son, Joey, because of his service in Iraq. ...

McNeilly, 33, returned in March after serving 15 months in Iraq. He agreed to give his ex-girlfriend Holly Erb of Mason temporary full custody while he was deployed.

A custody order said the issue would be revisited when McNeilly returned from Iraq, but a court referee in May recommended against restoring shared custody.

The referee's report said the court favored Erb because she was the "day-to-day caretaker and decision maker in the child's life" while McNeilly was deployed.

The court also said that Erb had established a custodial environment for Joey while McNeilly was deployed.

Erb's lawyer, Theresa Sheets of Lansing, has said Erb is concerned that McNeilly is not a fit father. Sheets pointed to some postcards that McNeilly sent his son from Iraq depicting soldiers in training. She said they frightened the boy.

Neither Erb nor Sheets returned messages for comment Wednesday.

This is a disgrace. McNeilly served his country honorably, and now the family court wants to punish him and his son for it. If anything, the mother is in the wrong for demonizing the dad's military service, and opportunistically using the service to move away and get more support payments.

Why I post here

When my ex-wife hired Jennifer J. Gray as her lawyer, Miss Gray told me that if I agree to their demands then she will agree to a stipulated request to seal the court records. Otherwise she would do everything she can to publicly humiliate me.

She also made it clear that her demand was for "sole legal custody" of the kids, and that she would not settle for anything less.

So I really had no choice but to publicly defend myself.

My main purpose here is to protest what the government is doing to me and my kids, and to document it so that others can learn from my experience. I believe that government processes should always be subject to public scrutiny. I never would have believed how bad the family court system is, had I not seen it for myself.

This a real case, and everything here is real except for a few pseudonyms.

My ex-wife withholds the kids

I just got out of court. It was just a status meeting. We are waiting for Dr. Inkblot to write his report, and for Jennifer Gray, my ex-wife's lawyer, to get her financial claims in order. So there was nothing to do but to schedule another court date. I asked for a date in a month. The judge said that was reasonable, but then Miss Gray suggested 6 weeks. So the judge told us to come back in 5 weeks. Miss Gray volunteered to tell Dr. Inkblot about the court date.

Outside the courtroom, I asked my ex-wife about getting the kids, as I am scheduled to get them on Wednesdays until 7:00 pm. She said that the kids were at a friend's house, according to a babysitting arrangement. I asked where, and offered to pick them up. She refused to tell me where, and said that me picking them up would interfere with the deal that she had made with her babysitter.

She asked me to propose something more reasonable. I asked her what the deal was with the babysitter. She said that she didn't have to tell me, and she wasn't going to tell me. After a couple of more attempts, I finally gave up and just asked her to drop off the kids whenever they are ready. Miss Gray observed the conversation, but was no help.

I don't know when I'll see the kids today. My guess is that I'll see them sometime before dinner, so my ex-wife won't have to make dinner for them. I had an activity planned for them today, but that is now impossible.

I am no longer able to figure out why my ex-wife does stuff like this. Surely, it is costing her time, money, and effort to place the kids with a babysitter instead of just letting me have them for the day.

My ex-wife reads this blog

My ex-wife has given Dr. Inkblot a complete printout of everything on this blog.

I am not sure what her purpose is. She apparently read everything thoroughly. If only she listened to me during our marriage, it might have worked better!

She particularly points to this post for an "example of people reading web site". It was an eloquent email I received about dads doing their duty in face of hardships. Read it yourself, and see if you can figure out why she thought that it was so interesting.

More domestic violence allegations

My ex-wife has dumped her domestic violence allegations on Dr. Inkblot, the new court-appointed psychologist. I thought that she had dropped that nonsense. Here is a complaint:

3. George continuously interrupted my sleeping. ... After I adjusted to his sleeping patterns by moving my head to the end of the bed near his feet so that I would have more room for my shoulders, he would complain that I didn't like to sleep with him, and that I needed to learn how to sleep with my husband.

Yeah, she needed to learn to sleep with her husband. Or relearn. She slept with me just fine for the first several years. She also complains:

5. Insisted that I leave the car keys in the car ignition, instead of on my body.

Yes, I did ask her to leave the car keys in the car when it was parked in the garage. That's what I did. The problem was that sometimes I'd want to go somewhere, and I'd be unable to find the car keys because she had pocketed them. Leaving them in the car seemed like a practical solution to me.

Here's another one:

7. When I try to leave his house with the children, frequently George follows us to the car, and hangs inside a car doorway. We can't leave until he decides to shut the door. This could take a couple of minutes.

Maybe I loved my family and I wanted to say goodbye to them?

This stuff goes on for many pages. Keep in mind that these are domestic violence allegations. Go figure. I am not the crazy one.

Extra day with the kids

My ex-wife had asked me to give her the kids at 5:00 yesterday, when the 2 weeks was to be over. She called yesterday at 3:30 pm, and said that she wanted them back the next day. No problem. I'll drop them off at 5:00 today.

It is odd that she petitioned the court to deny me my 2 weeks with the kids, and then leaves them with me for a 15th day. I just hope she doesn't complain to the court that I kept them for an extra day.

Back from the trip

I just got back from a couple of trips with the kids.

I visited Dr. Inkblot again. He said that he met with my ex-wife, and that she gave him a big list of complaints about me. She also gave him 100s of pages of documents, in addition to the 500 or so pages that she already gave him. He said that she even gave him a couple of articles that my mom wrote, and claimed that I secretly ghost-wrote them.

I also got this proposed court order from Jennifer Gray (the lawyer) in today's mail:

10. Other(specify): Respondent may take the minor children for an uninterrupted two week vacation in August 2005. During the vacation, the minors shall be in daily communication with the Petitioner; Petitioner shall receive an itinerary one week in advance of the vacation, which shall include all telephone numbers and address where the minors will be during the vacation.

The trip is over. We went to St. Louis and Santa Barbara. I will return the kids on Sunday afternoon when the 2 weeks is over. I am not sure why she now wants me to sign off on a court order that is moot anyway.

If my ex-wife wanted all that stuff about the trip, she could have just done those things when she took the kids on a trip, and then just asked me to do the same. But no, she'd rather have some after-the-fact court order to make me do things that she'd never do.

Order appointing the shrink

I just got this from the court:

ORDER APPOINTING CHILD CUSTODY EVALUATOR
THE COURT ORDERS AS FOLLOWS:
1. Name ... private child custody evaluator (name): Igor Inkblot, PhD
is appointed to perform a full or partial child custody evaluation in this matter under

2. The scope of the evaluation is (specify):

To assess:
1. Do the parents have the ability to co-parent?
2. Are there any personality disorders or other mental illness that would impair parenting? What is the recommended treatment or solutions to these issues.
3. Are there any other psychological or behavioral issues that the Court should consider in determining what arrangement is in the best interest of the children.

3. Within 10 court days of receipt of this order and prior to commencing the evaluation, the child custody evaluator must file a Declaration of Child Custody Evaluator Regarding Qualifications (form FL 326) with the court, unless the person is a court connected employee who must annually file the Declaration of Child Custody Evaluator Regarding Qualifications (FL 326).

So the judge is appointing someone with child custody evaluator qualifications, and he is calling it a child custody evaluation, but he is not asking for a child custody recommendation.

In court, Judge Joseph said it this way:

THE COURT: So what we want to do is have a professional come to some conclusions with regard to a few issues. One issue is: Are the two of you able to co-parent? ...

I want a full psych evaluation. Additionally, I want to determine whether there are any personality disorders that may get in the way of co-parenting. And also learn what solutions are available for those issues if they do exist. And lastly -

THE FATHER: That's for both of us?

THE COURT: So far the order includes you but it should be clear that both parents are participating in the psychological evaluation. I can call it family psych eval if you'd like. Does that make it more clear to you?

THE FATHER: But the psychologist will be determining if I have any personality disorders and [my wife] has any personality disorders?

THE COURT: True.

THE FATHER: okay.

THE COURT: And then lastly, are there any other psychological issues that need attention to allow you to be better parents.

I hope that Dr. Inkblot can make sense out of this.

Paper-bombing the shrink

My ex-wife's lawyer has just mailed about 500 pages of court-related documents to the new court-appointed psychologist. I am not sure what she is trying to accomplish. Most of the documents are irrelevant to the psychologist's task.

In court last week, Ms. Gray asked the judge to require me to give her copies of whatever documents I might give the psychologist. However, Ms. Gray did not give me a copy of what she sent him. She just sent me the cover letter.

The psychologist charges $220 per hour. It is very unlikely that he will actually read all the boring transcripts and try to make sense out of them.

What my ex-wife really wants to do is to resuscitate unsubstantiated and false charges that the court rejected. She is hoping that she will do her little cry act before the psychologist, and that he will be gullible enough to fall for it. We shall soon see.

My walking papers

I am now divorced. I just got the divorce decree in the mail today. It said:

Date marital or domestic partnership status end: AUG 01 2005

Another sheet said that my notification date was AUG 03 2005. It was stamped by Alex Calvo and Sarah Wood. I guess they work for the court.

I don't know why it took so long. My wife, er ex-wife now, filed for divorce in Oct. 2003. There is a statute about waiting 6 months, but there is no good reason to wait longer.

My guess is that the court likes to withhold finalizing the divorce as a way of pressuring us into a child custody and financial settlement.

What surprised me was that my ex-wife was not more eager to finalize the divorce. I would have thought that she would have wanted to legitimize her adultery. I guess that she'll now tell the kids that she has a boyfriend, and that there was a reason why they've been sleeping over at his house on a regular basis.

I was also surprised at the "domestic partnership" language. Sign of the times, I guess.

Order went to shrink

I just got an email from the local in-house court psychologist:

The Court Order went out today to Dr. Inkblot.

The email was in response to my wife's lawyer's email, and was dated about three hours into the future. I guess she hasn't set the date properly on her computer.

The strange thing is that the order went directly to the psychologist without me even seeing it. Dr. Inkblot (a pseudonym) is not within the jurisdiction of the court. The court can order me and my wife to do things, but not Dr. Inkblot. Now I'll have to see Dr. Inkblot, and he'll wonder why my instructions do not match the judge's order. I'll have to tell him that I haven't even seen the order.

Oh well, Dr. Inkblot looks like he is old enough that he has seen a lot of messed up cases before.

Arguing about the judge's order

Masculiste asks (in his comment to the message below) why we are interpreting transcripts when the judge's order is binding.

In this county, the judges usually do not bother writing up their own orders. Usually he asks the winning lawyer to write it up for the judge's signature. In my case, my wife has a lawyer and I do not, so my wife's lawyer seems to think that it is always her responsibility to write up the orders whether she wins or loses.

In my experience, Ms. Gray always uses the opportunity to sneak clauses (that were not ordered) into her proposals. Other lawyers in town play similar games. Sometimes the judge receives two diametrically opposed proposals, and he has to decide which to sign. I would think that the judges would be annoyed at such slimy tactics, but maybe they don't want to admit that they are too lazy or busy to write up their own orders.

The result of all this nonsense that it can take months to get a written order from the judge. We are still waiting for the order that should have resulted from the March 25 hearing. My kids are currently being punished because I (supposedly) did not follow the letter of the March 25 order, but there is no written order and the transcripts are subject to interpretation.

I intend to mail the following letter later today:

Dear Commissioner Joseph:

I just got (in my Aug. 3 mail; the envelope was postmarked Aug. 2) a copy of Ms. Jennifer J. Gray’s letter dated July 25, 2005. She asked you to sign her proposed Findings and Order After Hearing (FOAH) for the March 25, 2005 hearing.

The problem is that her proposed FOAH does not match what Judge Kelly said. For example, it starts, "The Court adopts Dr. Johnson’s recommendations." I have just reviewed the 128-page transcript, and Judge Kelly did not say that. Judge Kelly’s order was quite a bit different from the recommendations in several very significant respects. Not a single one of the 22 recommendations was literally adopted by Judge Kelly. Ms. Gray implies that the transcript supports her position, but she cannot provide any quote to prove it.

Ms. Gray’s proposed FOAH says that I am to participate in counseling "at least two times per week". Neither Dr. Johnson nor Judge Kelly said that, of course.

I have provided my own proposed FOAH which I believe matches what Judge Kelly actually said much more closely. Ms. Gray has not pointed to any inaccuracy in my proposed FOAH.

Respectfully,
[George the Angry Dad]

This whole exercise is silly because the order will be obsolete by the time it is signed. Ms. Gray is persisting because she wants to burn up some legal fees, or she wants a paper trail showing that she won a motion or that I didn't follow a court order or something, I don't know.

The most amazing thing to me is that Ms. Gray is accustomed to getting away with such sloppy lawyering. She just boldly sticks to her erroneous proposed order, and tells the judge to go get a transcript from the court reporter if he wants to know what really happened. (The current judge was not the judge at the hearing in dispute.) I would think that if a lawyer is going to claim that she is right and I am wrong, then she would quote the transcript to support her position and point to the errors in mine. She has not. I really doubt that the judge is going to go get some transcript on his own.

I am also amazed that Ms. Gray has the nerve to devote about half of her letter to procedural formalities. And then she only mails me a copy of the letter a week and a half after the date on the letter!

Her lawyer pesters the judge

I just got this letter from my wife's lawyer.

July 25, 2005

Hon. Irwin Joseph
Commissioner of the Superior Court
Santa Cruz Superior court
701 Ocean Street
Santa Cruz, CA 95060

Re: Marriage of George the AngryDad, FL 018xxx
FOAH Hearing: 03-25-05

Dear Commissioner Joseph:

Following the hearing in the above matter on March 25, 2005, I prepared the Findings and Order After Hearing, based upon the court's Minute Order and upon the reporter's complete transcript of the hearing. I forwarded the proposed order to the Respondent for his approval, indicating that in the absence of approval the proposed order would be submitted to the court for signature pursuant to CRC 391. A copy of my transmittal letter is enclosed for your reference.

On April 20, 2005, 1 received by e-mail (only) a copy of Respondent's correspondence to Judge Kelly, indicating that he believed my proposed order was in error, and instead offering in letter form his own proposed order. A copy of that e-mail transmission is also enclosed for your reference. I do not believe that Respondent's proposed order accurately reflects Judge Kelly's orders as set forth in the reporter's transcript. At no time did Mr. AngryDad submit to me for signed approval any formal FOAH. I therefore submitted my proposed FOAH to the court for signature, per my letter to Judge Kelly dated April 20, 2005 (copy enclosed).

I have just received the original FOAH and its attachments back from the clerk's office, with a note indicating the proposed order was being returned because it was not "approved by Respondent as conforming to court order".

I am therefore requesting your assistance in this matter. Enclosed again is my original proposed FOAH, submitted for your signature and filing. I have attached a copy of the court's Minute Order for your convenience. The reporter's transcript of the March 25, 2005 hearing is also available to you from the reporter, [name omitted]. If you would be so kind, either sign the FOAH submitted herewith, or alternatively, provide the parties with your own written order.

If I can answer any questions concerning this matter, please feel free to contact me and Mr. AngryDad. Thank you in advance for your assistance.

Very truly yours,
JJG/b Jennifer J. Gray

I guess that I'll have to answer this. I don't know why I am just now getting a letter dated July 25. That was a week and a half ago.

Lawyer email to court

My wife's lawyer, Ms. Gray, just sent me a copy of an email to the court's in-house psychologist:

Dr. Berrenge:
The court appointed Dr. Inkblot to conduct the psychological evaluations in this matter. Could you please draft an order for the court to forward to Dr. Inkblot? As you know, the parties would like to begin this process as quickly as possible.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Sincerely,

(I changed the name of Dr. Inkblot.) The email was addressed to Dr. Berrenge at Ms. Gray's law firm! So either Dr. Berrenge has an email account on Ms. Gray's server, or it is a mistake. If it were a mistake, then it should have bounced, and I should soon get a copy of the resent message.

The message is useless anyway. Dr. Berrenge is on vacation. The judge told us to get started, and not wait for the written court order. And the email does not include the critical info that the judge requires, namely the 3 questions listed below.

I can only guess that Ms. Gray is trying to manipulate the process somehow. I think I'll just ignore it.

Saw the new shrink

I just got back from the psychologist. I used $220 of his time (that is just one hour) mainly to discuss formalities: what the judge wants, what he should do, history of the marriage, age of the kids, etc. He started to tell me how a psychological evaluation works, and I told him I had been thru it before. I gave him a report that includes psychological tests that I had taken previously.

He skimmed the report, and noticed that I had not taken an inkblot test. So he scheduled me to come back for an inkblot test. I have to play along, and humor these folks.

The test is completely unscientific, and is about like dream interpretation. About the only value is that a schizophrenic will sometimes look at a meaningless pattern and be prompted to tell some crazy story. To any reasonably normal person, and even to most neurotic people, the test is just a silly waste of time.

I tried this online Rorschach Test, and got this diagnosis:

Diagnostic Overview: Your responses indicate that you secretly wish for the Apocalypse. You need treatment for this, like not watching so much CNN. It also appears that you're very mistrustful of red cars, toilet paper, and the sky. If untreated, you will end up being one of those people who keep 100 cats in their house. People who answer as you did worry constantly about Japanese steel imports.

Long-Term Prognosis: Because you have no regard for human life, fair play, or mercy, your only career choice is to be a lawyer. Although debilitating, this kind of emotional disorder is treatable with a strict regimen of drug therapy and shock sessions. You may never be completely normal, but this mental illness will not be passed on to your offspring.

Funny.

Seeing a new shrink

I have an appointment with the new court-appointed psychologist today. He wants a $2k retainer. He's probably used to unhappy clients who don't want to pay.

He has already told me that my wife has a different story about the scope of the psychological. It appears that my wife wants to be able to badmouth me to the psychologist, but doesn't want to be evaluated herself. I guess I'll have to be prepared to show him a transcript of what the judge said.