Tuesday, September 21, 2010

More psychologist-lawyer criticism

I previously criticized a psychologist affidavit, but I don't think that I covered how bad it is.

Suppose a heart surgeon wrote an affidavit to force someone to have open-heart surgery. It would be inadequate to just say, "I've done 100 open-heart surgeries and the patient had some symptoms of a bad heart 5 years ago."

Such an affidavit would be obviously defective because everyone understands that surgery is dangerous, and that opinions differ on the necessity of such surgeries.

The affidavit does not even include minimal info necessary to make an informed decision. It does not even say whether any of those 100 patients even survived the surgery! It does not even acknowledge the risk of surgery, or the risk of a bad diagnosis, or possibility of good reasons for avoiding the surgery. It does not even say that there is any likelihood that the patient will live any longer with the surgery.

The psychologist affidavit below has all of these problems and more. There is nothing in it that presents any likelihood that the requested court order is going to make anyone better off. It babbles about hokey tests and vaguely hints about some hypothetical harms, but there is nothing specific.

If the family court took affidavits from chiropractors, they would probably recommend that spinal manipulation be ordered, hinting that otherwise the parent could get back pain and then be a less effective parent. That would make as much sense as this psychologist affidavit.

The problem is not just that this affidavit is sloppily written. The author is a very experienced psychologist and lawyer, and his affidavit is probably as good as any others in the county for the purpose. The problem is that the goal is so completely bogus.

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