Critical Review of Rorschach in Child Custody Evaluations
journal article
Psychological Scientific discipline in the Public Interest
Published By: Sage Publications, Inc.
https://www. jstor .org/stable/40062305
Most parents who live apart negotiate custody arrangements on their own or with the help of lawyers, mediators, or other professionals. However, psychologists and other mental health professionals increasingly have become involved in evaluating children and families in custody disputes, considering of the big number of separated, divorced, and never-married parents and the substantial conflict that often accompanies the breakup of a family unit. Theoretically, the police force guides and controls kid custody evaluations, merely the prevailing custody standard (the "all-time interests of the child" exam) is a vague rule that directs judges to make decisions unique to individual cases according to what will be in children'south hereafter (and undefined) best interests. Furthermore, country statutes typically offering only vague guidelines as to how judges (and evaluators) are to appraise parents and the merits of their cases, and how they should ultimately decide what custody arrangements will be in a child's all-time interests. In this vacuum, custody evaluators typically administrate to parents and children an array of tests and assess them through less formal means including interviews and observation. Sadly, we find that (a) tests specifically adult to appraise questions relevant to custody are completely inadequate on scientific grounds; (b) the claims of some anointed experts about their favorite constructs (e.g., "parent breach syndrome ") are equally hollow when subjected to scientific scrutiny; (c) evaluators should question the use even of well-established psychological measures (e.g., measures of intelligence, personality, psychopathology, and academic achievement) because of their ofttimes limited relevance to the questions earlier the court; and (d) little empirical data be regarding other important and controversial issues (eastward.g., whether evaluators should solicit children's wishes about custody; whether infants and toddlers are harmed or helped by overnight visits), suggesting a need for further scientific investigation. We encounter the system for resolving custody disputes equally deeply flawed, for reasons that go across the problem of express science. The coupling of the vague "best interests of the kid" test with the American adversary arrangement of justice puts judges in the position of trying to perform an impossible chore, and it exacerbates parental conflict and issues in parenting and coparenting, which psychological scientific discipline clearly shows to be central factors predicting children's psychological difficulties in response to their parents' separation and divorce. Our analysis of the flawed system, together with our desire to sharply limit custody disputes and custody evaluations, leads us to propose three reforms. Beginning, nosotros urge continued efforts to encourage parents to reach custody agreements on their own--in divorce mediation, through collaborative constabulary, in good-faith attorney negotiations, in therapy, and in other forums. Some such efforts take been demonstrated to better parent-parent and parent-child relationships long afterward divorce, and they embrace the philosophical position that, in the absence of abuse or neglect, parents themselves should determine their children's best interests afterwards separation, just as they do in spousal relationship. Second, we urge state legislatures to move toward adopting more clear and determinative custody rules, a footstep that would greatly clarify the terms of the union contract, limit the need for custody evaluations, and sharply narrow the scope of the evaluation procedure. We find particular merit in the proposed "approximation dominion" (recently embraced by the American Police force Found), in which postdivorce parenting arrangements would approximate parenting involvement in marriage. Third and finally, we recommend that custody evaluators follow the law and just offer opinions for which in that location is an adequate scientific ground. Related to this, we urge professional bodies to enact more specific standards of practice on this and related problems.
Psychological Science in the Public Interest (PSPI) is a supplement to Psychological Science published three times a year. Each issue contains an issue-length monograph presenting the electric current country of psychological research on a topic of pressing social or policy relevance. PSPI reports are authored past teams of experts representing the range of electric current opinion in the subject being reviewed, and thus are intended to represent the consensus of the field. Topics covered by PSPI reports include imitation confessions, the effects of media violence, sexual practice differences in math and scientific discipline achievement, and terrorism.
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Source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40062305
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