The APA Ethics Code, Standard 9.11, Maintaining Test Security (Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct of the American Psychological Association http://www.apa.org/ethics/code2002.html).
Wrong. By its own language, the APA ethics code, an extra-legal code of ethics of a private trade association, requires compliance "consistent with law". In the law, there is a hierarchy of authority. Higher authorities control lesser authorities. At the top is the U.S. Constitution, and the case law interpreting it, recognizing fundamental rights of fairness, due process, and cross-examination. Below that are federal statutes that supersede state laws. Below that come state laws, constitutional, statutory, and case law. Below that come administrative regulations. At the very bottom is the law of private contract, such as the APA regulations -- or the contracts of nonparties who, with advance knowledge of those contracts, voluntarily, and for profit, have injected themselves, their data, and the purported conflict of interest they create into other persons' issues and litigation.
That was "purported conflict". There actually is no "conflict". Lower authorities that refer to exceptions "otherwise required by law" are indicating that they must be interpreted consistent with that higher legal authority, and that their mandates are subordinate to it. Thus, it is neither "reasonable" nor "consistent with law" to posture that a private contract might supersede the requirements of the constitution.Doing so repeatedly, as some psychs do in case after case, speciously pretending to ignorance and confusion, is frivolous, unsupportable, sanctionable conduct.
The APA ethics language is repeated in multiple states' psychology regulations, e.g. in Florida's Administrative Code 64B19-18.004.
Wrong. The Administrative Code regulating psychology, albeit a step up from private contract, cannot be interpreted by a thinking individual as law that competes with, conflicts with, or modifies higher legal authority or more compelling constitutional rights. The lower authority rules still must be interpreted in a manner that is consistent with those constitutional rights and superseding law. In the United States of America, we do not permit Court of Star Chamber proceedings, in which the underlying data upon which expert opinions are based, gets to be kept secret from the litigants. Since that's not an option, there's nothing for a court properly to decide.
The claim of having to defend a board complaint is spurious. The likelihood of a board complaint being prompted by response of a forensic witness to a subpoena issued in litigation is less than miniscule. Additionally, if a frivolous board complaint is going to be filed, no court order will prevent it, and it still will have to be defended (easily). Finally, the psych trade lobbies have pushed for all kinds of malpractice immunities to hinder litigants from lodging even valid complaints in connection with family law cases, so the protestation is ridiculous on multiple grounds.
(In part, these codes and industry regulation schemes are self-serving trade promotion and protection. For example, see Tana Dineen: "Psychological Illusions: Professionalism and the Abuse of Power" Presented at the Symposium: (Ab)Using Power: The Canadian Experience. Vancouver, B.C. May 8, 1998. A revised version of this paper is available in (Ab)Using Power: The Canadian Experience. Boyd, Susan C., Chunn, Dorothy E. and Menzies, Robert (Eds). Halifax, NS: Fernwood Publ. 2001. Available at http://tanadineen.com/writer/writings/index.htm )
See additional discussion below on the Florida code.
Wrong. This is a two-part assertion, and both parts are wrong. First, the APA ethics code does not control higher legal authority. If and to the extent it is incorporated into psychology regulations, it still does not control over higher legal authority. And, with regard to the presumed prohibition on delivering this material to litigants and their lawyers, the APA Code does no such thing.
See, e.g. Misuse of Psychological Tests in Forensic Settings: Some Horrible Examples Ralph Underwager and Hollida Wakefield, available at http://deltabravo.net/custody/misuse.php and http://www.ipt-forensics.com/library/special_problems13.htm
http://www.nanonline.org/NAN/ResearchPublications/PositionPapers.aspx
http://www.apls.org/links/currentforensicguidelines.pdf
Wrong. The psych's attempted "appeal to authority" is an error of both logical reasoning and legal reasoning. The National Academy of Neuropsychology is not a legal authority. The Specialty Guidelines for Forensic Psychologists is not law, and its authors are not legal authorities. A dozen more me-toos from psych trade organizations would add not a whit of weight.
All these arguments stand as evidence that psychs by reason of their training do not know what constitutes legal authority, do not understand or appreciate the justice system, and do not belong in courts of law. See Child Custody Evaluations: Reevaluating the Evaluators
Wrong. More appeal to (non)authority. And repeating the speculative assertion of prospective harm does not make it more correct. There is no research evidence anywhere establishing that preventing the release of forensic psychology test data and other assessment records actually protects or ever has protected anyone other than those with an interest in making money from selling or using these instruments.
(To the extent that the trade promotion interests of a third party are in conflict with the fundamental due process rights of the actual litigants in a court case, it should be remembered that the third party voluntarily injected itself into the proceedings, knowing in advance what its interests were, and thus implicitly waived those interests in deference to the litigants' higher interests in due process and fundamental fairness.)
Wrong. This argument confounds copyright interests ("public domain"), which are specific persons' and groups' profit-motivated interests, with generalized public harm from, presumably, the public's need to be able to take psych tests.
No research has established that any harm will come to the public if psych testing were not available. While it is plausible as an hypothesis, no evidence establishes this. Indeed, the public managed very well for hundreds of years without psych testing and there is no evidence (unlike in the fields of medicine or dentistry) that the public is better off, more well adjusted, healthier, or happier, because of the availability of psych tests.
The allusion to the copyright issue indicates more truthfully whose and what interests are of concern to the trade organizations and the test publishers.
Additionally, the argument raises the question of how it could be that these tests -- if presumably so reliable that they can and should be used in a forensic setting -- could be so lacking in robustness and so easily corrupted that they would no longer be useful if a member of the public, determined to respond honestly in order to obtain therapy, happened to see the test materials at some prior time because the materials were in a court file, instead of a college library, where any undergraduate psych major might peruse them.
The argument begs the question of what all the people who DO have knowledge of these tests do if these tests are presumably so needed by the public. Don't psychologists ever require therapy? How about other mental health professionals, school personnel, test publisher employees, researchers, judges and lawyers who deal with forensic experts, and every person who at some point in the past already took one of the tests? The argument is nonsense. The real interest at stake, the real motive for the forensic psych's recalcitrance, has nothing to do with concern for public welfare (and very likely not even so much concern for complying with test publishers' admonitions as interest in protecting the individual psych from scrutiny).
(Also note the difference from the standpoint of a test taker between a test administered in a forensic setting and one administered for the purpose of receiving therapy.)
Similarly, psychological tests cannot be made public without invalidating the tests, just as examinations are invalid if the questions are published in advance.
Wrong. The LSAT and other similar standardized tests are not analogous. First, they have sufficient validity that test questions can be changed from administration to administration without devastating the test. In other words, they are real tests, testing real things, with actual right and wrong answers. Second, the test protocols, scoring methods, past test questions, and practice questions routinely are distributed by the test publishers to future test takers, with no great hue and cry about public harm occurring because some people practice for them and others do not. And, even if the exact questions on the test about to be taken are not given out, the substance of what will be asked in the questions is -- and is expected to be studied.
Wrong. What do psychologists, other mental health professionals, school personnel, test publisher employees, researchers, judges and lawyers who deal with forensic experts, and every other person who at some point in the past took one of these tests do "if dementia is suspected or if they develop a brain tumor"? The argument is nonsense -- and would be even if persons with brain tumors or dementia were clever enough to recall and set about cheating on psych tests (and wanted to), and even if there also were not actual medical tests for these things.
(The hypothesis of lawyer regulators possibly requiring a lawyer in the future to take a psych test is not only fantasy, but a transparent attempt to align himself on a superior peer-level with the judge versus the attorneys in the case, hoping in this way to persuade him to quash the subpoena by planting the suggestion that the lawyers are seeking discovery for unethical reasons, not for the purpose of adequately representing their clients. If a psych makes this argument, it's a bell ringer that he's a slick willy, further supporting the need for full, unfettered discovery.)
Wrong. Misinterpretation of test scores and unintended consequences of test usage is exactly why full and unfettered discovery of ALL underlying data and testing materials is mandatory whenever these things are used in a forensic setting. Because virtually always, that misinterpretation is by psychs, not by litigants.
No research has established any harm befalling the general public from lay persons misinterpreting these tests (or the handy computer printouts of suggested diagnoses). On the other hand, psych tests routinely have been manipulated and misused by forensic opiners in court cases -- and elsewhere -- to make specious arguments that have harmed many persons. The integrity of the court system takes so much priority over the asserted need for integrity of these dubious psych instruments that this argument should be a nonstarter for any judge worth his salt.
Wrong. The case isn't close to on-point. It involved an employer with a testing program who rejected certain applicants, and who was sued by the union. The employer refused to disclose the test data of employees who had been promised confidentiality. The material implicated employee privacy concerns and was trade secret of the actual defendant in the case. It was not prepared by a forensic expert in anticipation of being used as part of the foundation of his paid opinion in a court case.
Compare: "On Oct. 24, 1995, in the case of Sharon L. and Warren E. Campbell v. Barry A. Mashek (Iowa District Court Consolidated Law Case No. 65070), the Fifth Judicial District of Iowa found the section of the Iowa code restricting release of test data to be unconstitutional under both federal and state law. In that case, several experts, including the renowned testing expert Dr. Paul Meehl, testified by affidavit that, 'Allowing a psychologist to offer opinions at trial, which are not subject to full and fair examination, based on the underlying test data, is repugnant to the basic principles of science and would fundamentally hinder any neutral body, such as a jury, in trying to arrive at valid conclusions about the condition of an individual who has put their psychological condition at issue by bringing a lawsuit.'" -- Paul R. Lees-Haley, Ph.D., and John C. Courtney, Psy.D. in Are Psychologists Hiding Evidence?
Wrong. It is not a violation of copyright to turn over materials in response to a subpoena for discovery, or to make photocopies of the materials for use in connection with litigation. Period. This falls squarely within the fair use exceptions.
If and to the extent the test publisher markets its products for its own profit for intended use in court, it also has knowingly, and in advance, thereby agreed to any publication that foreseeably ensues in connection with those court proceedings, because those proceedings ordinarily should be expected to comport with due process.
There is an easy solution if the test publisher or the forensic psych doesn't like this. Don't use these instruments for forensic work. It is validly argued that by doing so, the psych deliberately, and for his own financial gain and self-aggrandizement, cavalierly set in motion a contract violation of his own doing. He cannot, after doing so, and after setting up a [purported] conflict of interest -- a dilemma of his own making -- now place the burden of rectifying that malfeasance on other people's time, money, and fundamental rights. A subpoena quash or protective order is an equitable remedy -- and the psych and the test publisher have dirty hands and cannot come into court midstream, changing their tune and begging for protection at others' expense and detriment.
(Compare the psychs' concerns with articles copyright. Not. http://www.thelizlibrary.org/liz/custody-evaluator-quotes.html#muchconcern )
Wrong. One: Private contracts of unrelated third parties who are not in privity with court litigants do not change these other people's constitutional rights.
Two: Litigants and lawyers are not "unqualified users" in connection with a court case. (See Lees-Haley and Courtney, above).
And three: If and to the extent the test publisher markets its products for its own profit for intended use in court, then it has knowingly, and in advance, thereby agreed to any publication that foreseeably ensues in connection with those court proceedings, because they may be expected to comport with due process. (Ifarguendo it has not done so, that means that the psych deliberately, knowingly, in advance, and for his own financial gain, breached his own contract. He thus has dirty hands and cannot obtain equitable relief from the consequences of his own wrongdoing at innocent others' expense and detriment.)
Wrong. Material that is readily sold, that is available to competitors, that is in the publicly-accessible files of the Library of Congress, that is discussed in articles and published in books that also are available to the public, and that is not kept by the test publisher from tens of thousands of psychs is not a trade secret. While test publishers individually indeed may have various trade secrets, they do not include material in the possession of competitors and industry-wide third party users. Trade secret law is utterly inapplicable, because its purpose is to protect competition -- to protect one business from its competitors. Once material is shared within the industry, trade secret law no longer applies. Interestingly,psychs here have the same issues that magicians do, in that they attempt to keep material secret from the public but the material is well-known in and among the industry competitors.
(As an aside, it also is not an argument to prevent discovery to claim that publications are available elsewhere. Even when they are, the specific materials within the particular possession of the psych remain discoverable to ascertain whether they have been altered, written on, contain notes, are complete, are up-to-date copies, and so forth.)
Wrong. Neither the lawyer nor the self-represented litigant are obligated to breach attorney work product and disclose their consulting expert to the psych in order to obtain discovery. Nor are they obligated to expend yet more money and hire yet another psych, if they have not already done so, in order to obtain discovery. Moreover, even if they happen to agree with this demand, because it costs them nothing, because a consulting psych already is on the case and at the ready, the contortions of turning the material over to a member of the lawyer's litigation team, a contractor or employee working under and reporting to the lawyer, are inane and pointless. All of these persons, including the lawyer, are working for and paid by the client; they will be sitting 'round the table, discussing, copying, sharing the material, and consulting with each other in preparation for trial.
(Lees-Haley and Courtney, supra, also argue that there is no actual definition of a "qualified professional" and that for purposes of litigation, the litigant and his lawyer are it.)
Wrong. This is a violation of the parties' due process rights. Discovery of these materials was a foreseeable event when the psych voluntarily, and for a fee, injected them into other people's court proceeding. The situation is not akin to necessary proceedings that might ensue when a patient's records are subpoena'd from a therapist. Here, there is no valid reason for the materials to be reviewed in advancein camera. Such a review implies a possible need to cull materials that might not be discoverable.
In the latter case, the potential harm to the discovering litigant is balanced against the rights of an unwitting, involuntary person who actually may have trade secrets or privacy issues, but has had them unexpectedly subpoena'd. It is an effort of last resort that risks biasing the fact finder (the judge, in a custody case) with out-of-court material that has not been introduced into the proceedings by the parties. This risk makes it a procedure that is neither fitting nor appropriate under forensic circumstances, over and above it being a pointless drain on the court's and everyone else's time and resources. (That a court-appointed evaluator would request this indicates either deliberate recalcitrance or ignorance of a degree that calls into question the rest of his judgment.)
Wrong. Lawyers are their clients' agents, not their handlers. The client is the principal, i.e. the boss.A lawyer not only is under an ethical obligation to communicate with his client, but as a practical matter, cannot adequately prepare his client's case without doing so. Moreover, the lawyer not only needs to disseminate the material to his client, but both need time to contemplate the material, review it multiple times as necessary, refer to it in deposition, and possibly consult with other lawyers or mental health professionals about it. It is the client's, not the lawyer's case.
In addition, the client may wish to consult with another lawyer for a second opinion, who may not be disclosed to his attorney of record, or to discharge his lawyer of record and proceed with another lawyer, or on his own. This is nobody else's business.
A lawyer may not enter into agreements that hamper his client in this way, or prevent his client from obtaining alternate counsel in this way, or which place the lawyer into a contractual conflict of interest with his own client, in favor of the psych or some test publishing company to whom the psych alleges he is beholden. Nor can a judge validly restrict the attorney-client relationship in this way, or countermand the attorney-client representation or rules of ethics that come from higher legal authorities.
Finally, no one else is entitled to know -- or to receive assurances or explanation -- of the communications that will transpire between the lawyer and client, or the procedure they will follow in connection with preparing the case. These are matters that are absolutely privileged, and may not be encroached upon by a court (or any third party) as a favor to the psych in lieu of compelling him to fork over the materials or else be held in contempt or barred from testifying.
The psych in essence is claiming that he has deliberately set upon a course of action moving toward his own foreseeable breach of asserted obligations to third parties, and now -- with his dirty hands -- comes to the court for equitable relief on other people's dime and time. And to their detriment. (So much for the great professed concern for public welfare.)
It is true that some courts grant these requests. Not infrequently they are doing so as a gratuitous concession to the psych, posturing as if there were some actual issue to resolve, because this permits them to not have to impose mandatory discovery sanctions against the ignorant losing party (the psych). This is wrong and indicates bias in favor of the forensic, who should know better, and who should be held to higher standards and required to pay the costs of the proceeding.
Frequently too, because psychs' reports are turned in at the eleventh hour, things are in a mad rush to trial, and the parties' lawyers do not have sufficient time or manpower (or funds) to dork around having hearings and appeals on these issues (let alone antagonize the court-appointee psych who already is wielding unwarranted power with the judge), so in the triage of trial preparation, they choose their battles and relent. None of it is evidence that the psych, now emboldened by his lack of understanding of what has been transpiring (rather than being grateful -- as he should be -- to not have to be footing the bill for his recalcitrance), was correct, not even a little.
Wrong. It's evidence in the case (and the litigant paid for the copying charges). The material provides the foundation for evidence that may be introduced into the record in one way or another. It thus may be needed at a rehearing, at subsequent hearings, or on appeal. It is evidence upon which decisions may be made that thereafter will be the law of the case. Some courts, after the fact at some ostensibly safe point in time, may agree to seal a court record, but this is utterly inappropriate in any case in which a child's custody remains open for continued redetermination. It also unwarrantedly hinders litigants from filing justifiable board complaints where necessary for malfeasance.
C.B. Fisher, The National Psychologist, Test data standard most notable change in new APA ethics code (January/February 2003) , p 12, citing Ethical Practice in Forensic Psychology: A Systematic Model for Decision Making, by Bush, Connell, & Denny, APA Books, pp 106 (2006)
Wrong. On all counts. These are not authorities at law -- they are psychs with various self-interested motives. This is not "confidential information". And the third-party receiving psych doesn't apply in the forensic context.
- Interestingly, one of the rationales psychs used back when lobbying for increased forensic evaluations in the family courts was that these would protect litigants' confidential therapy records. The public stupidly went along with this reasoning, as if psychs have objective ways of knowing the invisible, as if they are similar to physicians who might do a blood test and diagnose a condition.
The APA ethics code also requires psychologists to adhere to certain guidelines and procedures in administering and interpreting tests. Without permitting the lawyer access to all the information required to enable him to investigate whether this was done and to cross-examine the psych, there is no way to establish compliance with these other ethical guidelines. Discovery is necessary to verify the psych's compliance with the ethical requirement that "Psychologists only use tests in appropriate ways" (such as when the use is empirically validated by research). Discovery is necessary to ascertain whether "Assessment results have been interpreted in light of the limitations inherent in such procedures." And, among other things, discovery is necessary to ferret out bias, corruption, and incompetence -- which are rampant among psychologists in family court.
See 1987 Grisso, "The Economic and Scientific Future of Forensic Psychological Assessment, American Psychologist:
"There is almost no empirical information concerning how to use parents' Wechsler or MMPI results to make inferences about their abilities to perform specific parenting functions."
See 1993 Brodzinsky, "On The Use and Misuse of Psychological Testing in Child Custody Evaluations," Professional Psychology: Research and Practice:
"Many lawyers and judges have an unrealistic view of what psychological testing can accomplish."
"There is often an assumption, sometimes expressed overtly, that testing provides a scientific foundation for the forensic evaluation. In other words, it allows the evaluator to go beyond the subjective nature of 'clinical impression' or 'clinical judgment' that is inherent in interviews and observations."
"There is a view that psychological tests allow the evaluator to be truly objective and therefore unbiased. This assumption is, of course, naive."
See 1997 Melton, Petrilla, Poythress, and Slobogin, Psychological Evaluations for the Courts, 2d ed.:
"It is our contention that such tests are often used inappropriately. Tests of intellectual capacity, achievement, personality style, and psychopathology are linked only indirectly, at best, to the key issues concerning custody and visitation."
"Apparent practices notwithstanding, we recommend the use of traditional psychological tests only when specific problems or issues that these tests were designed to measure appear salient in the case."
FLORIDA LAW (similar to a number of other states): Florida Administrative Code, 64B19-18.004 Use of Test Instruments... There are three exceptions to the prohibition against the release of test data. What are they, what do they mean, why are they there, and when do they apply:
"A psychologist who uses test instruments may not release test data, such as test protocols, test questions, assessment-related notes, or written answer sheets, except
1) to a licensed psychologist or school psychologist...
To the extent not superseded by federal medical privacy law, the first exception above is what you do with records requested by a patient or his representative, when you are the therapist and there is no court proceeding.
2) after complying with the procedures set forth in Rule 64B19-19.005, F.A.C., and obtaining an order from a court or other tribunal of competent jurisdiction or
The second exception is what you do when your or your patient's confidential therapy records are subpoena'd in litigation that otherwise has nothing to do with you and in which you were not planning to testify.
3) when the release of the material is otherwise required by law.
Item #3 is not redundant, and doesn't mean the same thing as #2, "get a court order." The third exception is for what you do when you are a forensic witness in a court case, and receive a subpoena. FORK IT OVER.
Maintaining the transparent, fundamentally fair operation of our justice system is not merely the law; it's a precept upon which the United States of America was founded.
Wrong. Judges sometimes are. That's why we have appellate courts. Lawyers too. That's why I've written this. And psychs? Count on it. It's time to get the psychs out of the family courts.
See: Florida Handbook on Discovery - 2007
And: Are Psychologists Hiding Evidence?
Therapeutic Jurisprudence Index
Are Psychologists Hiding Evidence?
Child Custody Evaluations -- Reevaluating the Evaluators
Custody Evaluation Guidelines -- Reevaluating (mirror)
Right of First Refusal in Parenting Plans
Child Custody Evaluators "In Their Own Words"
Parenting Coordination, a bad idea
Parenting Coordinator Practical Considerations
Those Joint Custody Studies
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