Tag: Law

I’ll be back… live on Facebook Live on Sunday at 8:00 Pacific. Who knows what I’ll talk about.

I may talk about the Mariners, or Neil Young, or maybe I’ll talk about your situation in the family courts, who knows, it’s Live.

Live from Seattle, it’s Sunday Childress.

Next week, you’ll get another series of fireside chats, I’m going to muse and old-man ramble on my experiences with the AFCC.

In 2017 I went to the national convention of the AFCC to tell them one thing – you are in violation of Standards 2.01 and 2.04 of the APA ethics code. To do that, I started by explaining the pathology to them using the “established scientific and professional knowledge of the discipline – which then activates Standards 2.01 and 2.04 requiring they know these domains of knowledge.

I went to the AFCC national convention to discharge my – required – ethical obligations under Standard 1.05 of the APA ethics code.

1.05 Reporting Ethical Violations
If an apparent ethical violation has substantially harmed or is likely to substantially harm a person or organization and is not appropriate for informal resolution under Standard 1.04, Informal Resolution of Ethical Violations , or is not resolved properly in that fashion, psychologists take further action appropriate to the situation. Such action might include referral to state or national committees on professional ethics, to state licensing boards, or to the appropriate institutional authorities.

There has been harm and the risk of ongoing harm from the unethical practice by other psychologists, so that criteria is met for the applicability of Standard 1.05, and Standard 1.04 Informal Notification of all of forensic psychology is not applicable… so Standard 1.05 is applicable – mandatory – required.

I need to take “further action appropriate to the situation.”

What is that? Standard 1.05 offers some suggested examples to guide the answer to that question – I should notify “state or national committees on professional ethics, to state licensing boards, or to the appropriate institutional authorities.”

As the professional organization for forensic psychologists in the family courts, notifying the institutional authority who is responsible for generating the Model Standards of Practice for Child Custody Evaluation, the AFCC, would be the appropriate institutional authority for me to notify.

AFCC Guidelines for Forensic Custody Evaluations
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiRxPX70KKAAxWlMjQIHfzeD70QFnoECA4QAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.afccnet.org%2FPortals%2F0%2FCommittees%2FModelStdsChildCustodyEvalSept2006.pdf&usg=AOvVaw3oh0h5xNw6DkMnOC-Gi4rn&opi=89978449

When you take responsibility for proposing guidelines, you also take responsibility for the consequences of following those guidelines.

To discharge my – mandatory – ethical obligations imposed by Standard 1.05 of the APA ethics code, I formally notified the AFCC – with documentation from my Powerpoint of exactly what I told them – of the ethical violations; Standards 2.01 & 2.04.

First, I educated them on the established knowledge because they are ignorant like a rock – I had to educate them before I could have a professional-level discussion with them. Then in four specific slides – I notified the AFCC of the specific ethical violations to competence.

I fulfilled my ethical obligation. It’s been six years, have they fulfilled theirs – Standards 2.01 Boundaries of Competence – Standard 2.04 Bases for Scientific and Professional Judgments – Standard 2.03 Maintaining Competence?

I also took Dorcy Pruter with me. I didn’t have to do that. She was not directly relevant to my accusations of ethical violations by the forensic psychologists. But as long as I was going to Mordor to destroy their ring of power, I might as well introduce them – and all of professional psychology in the family courts, including clinical psychology when they return – to Dorcy Pruter, CEO of the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute.

Dorcy is a businesswoman and family coach with over 10 years of experience solving the pathology in the family courts. I felt it was my ethical obligation to introduce professional psychology to the remarkable Ms. Puter – who has the solution, the High Road workshop, in her hip pocket.

“Hey, forensic psychology, have you met Ms. Pruter? She has a 4-day workshop that fixes the pathology. Do you want to know how she does it? Okay, we’ll explain it to you” – documented on a specific set of slides presented to the national convention of the AFCC.

We explained to them what Dorcy does, and how she achieves her success in a full recovery of the child… in just four days.

Dorcy told them what she does, then I provided a translation from her common sense into professional-speak. Then Dorcy would tell them the next thing she does, and I provided a translation from her common sense into professional-speak – documented by the Powerpoint slides we presented.

So… you’d think the AFCC would like receiving this information regarding established knowledge and solutions. Do you know what they did in response?

They removed the Continuing Education units from all the participants who attended because of a post-convention campaign of lies and harassment led by Jean Mercer… who documents exactly what she did on her blog – crowing about how she got the AFCC to remove the CE units for the Childress & Pruter seminar.

Holy cow… Jean Mercer is so intellectually.challenged that I don’t even have to document her into the record… she documents herself. Oh my gosh, that’s just so… unusual.

I have to be careful about what I say. Did you know one time Jean Mercer filed a licensing board complaint against me in California for unprofessional practice (I said in a blog that she was not a “real psychologist” because she’s never been licensed to assess, diagnose, or treat any pathology), and then she tried to use this board complaint (that she made) in testimony to the court to slander my professional reputation (without informing the court that it was Jean Mercer who made the complaint) – it was dismissed once I explained things to the California Board of Psychology.

Holy cow… the Adventures of a Clinical Psychologist in Wonderland. There’s an entire menagerie of characters over here – there’s the Walrus and the Carpenter over there manipulating and feasting on the oysters – there are hookah smoking caterpillars – and the Mad Hatter runs a continual tea party with his friends.

And I have documentation. Am I Alice or Lewis Carrol?

Do you want to hear a story? I have so many interesting stories. Like the time I presented with Dorcy to the AFCC.

Did you know I presented with Dorcy again in 2019, this time to the national convention of the APA. That’s another interesting story – for some other time.

Next week, you’ll hear about the time Dr. Childress & Dorcy Pruter presented to the AFCC national convention.

Then I’ll be back on Sunday for another Facebook Live – then I’ll tell you more stories from the Adventures of a Clinical Psychologist in Wonderland of the Family Courts.

It just keeps getting curiouser and curiouser.

Craig Childress, Psy.D.
Clinical Psychologist, CA PSY 18857