This is where we are headed.
When child abuse is a considered diagnosis, our diagnosis needs to be accurate 100% of the time. The consequences for misdiagnosing child abuse are too devastating for the child.
The appellate system for a disputed diagnosis is second opinion. Each litigant-parent is making allegations of abuse against the other.
The Court should identify a psychologist to conduct the diagnostic assessment, and each litigant parent should be allowed to appoint a second opinion consultant to ensure that both parents’ issues are properly addressed.
Forensic custody evaluations need to end. They are a failed experiment in a quasi-judicial role for doctors. They were allowed to experiment on children and parents without proper oversight or review… and their experiment failed.
Miserably failed. As a result of their failed experiment on children and parents, the lives of thousands upon thousands of children and their parents were irrevocably destroyed.
Why were they allowed to experiment on children and parents?
We need to end this failed experiment that is destroying the lives of children and parents daily, and we need to return to standard healthcare practices of diagnosis and treatment.
There is no quasi-judicial role for doctors. Doctors don’t decide on custody – courts do. Courts don’t diagnose pathology – doctors do.
The doctors left the field of healthcare to do something… different. They tried to be mini-judges deciding on custody rather than diagnosing pathology. That was a very-very bad thing to do.
When doctors don’t diagnose pathology, the courts need to start diagnosing (identifying) what the problem in the family is, and that’s not their role or their training.
When doctors stop being doctors, everything gets messed up.
All the doctors in the family courts, all the forensic psychologists, need to return to their healthcare role as doctors and provide the Court with an accurate diagnosis of the pathology 100% of the time.
Any diagnosis returned into the legal system will be a disputed diagnosis – so second opinions through telehealth should be routinely obtained.
Craig Childress, Psy.D.
Clinical Psychologist
WA 61538481
OR 3942 – CA 18857

