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A Comprehensive Guide to Child Custody Evaluations: Mental Health and Legal PerspectivesThe “Ultimate Issue” – Recommendations

A Comprehensive Guide to Child Custody Evaluations: Mental Health and Legal Perspectives: The... THE “ULTIMATE ISSUE” – RECOMMENDATIONS CURRENT PRACTICES AND GUIDELINES ecent research (Bow & Quinnell, 2002) indicates that most Rchild custody reports include recommendations regarding physical custody (92%), legal custody (85%), and visitation (81%), and many others also recommend psychotherapy for parents (64%) or children (40%). Both judges and attorneys want the input of these recommendations, which they see as one of the most valuable parts of the reports (Bow & Quinnell, 2004; Poythress, 1981; Stahl, 2005). Professional guidelines support the provision of recommendations as long as they are based on verified information that is carefully incorporated into clinical inferences and impressions (AAPL, 1995; APA-med, 1988) and custody evaluators explain the version of the best interests standard that they are using (APA, 1994). Despite these accepted practices, recommendations have recently been the subject of heated controversy among forensic psychology scholars. Let’s examine the central elements of this controversy and then consider how to write reports that are sensitive to these issues. ARGUMENTS AGAINST RECOMMENDATIONS Insufficient Scientific Information Several renowned forensic psychologists have argued that there is not enough sound behavioral science research that is relevant 107 108 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS to custody evaluations and decisions (e.g. Melton et al., 1997; Schepard, http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

A Comprehensive Guide to Child Custody Evaluations: Mental Health and Legal PerspectivesThe “Ultimate Issue” – Recommendations

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Publisher
Springer US
Copyright
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2008
ISBN
978-0-387-71893-4
Pages
107 –115
DOI
10.1007/978-0-387-71894-1_7
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

THE “ULTIMATE ISSUE” – RECOMMENDATIONS CURRENT PRACTICES AND GUIDELINES ecent research (Bow & Quinnell, 2002) indicates that most Rchild custody reports include recommendations regarding physical custody (92%), legal custody (85%), and visitation (81%), and many others also recommend psychotherapy for parents (64%) or children (40%). Both judges and attorneys want the input of these recommendations, which they see as one of the most valuable parts of the reports (Bow & Quinnell, 2004; Poythress, 1981; Stahl, 2005). Professional guidelines support the provision of recommendations as long as they are based on verified information that is carefully incorporated into clinical inferences and impressions (AAPL, 1995; APA-med, 1988) and custody evaluators explain the version of the best interests standard that they are using (APA, 1994). Despite these accepted practices, recommendations have recently been the subject of heated controversy among forensic psychology scholars. Let’s examine the central elements of this controversy and then consider how to write reports that are sensitive to these issues. ARGUMENTS AGAINST RECOMMENDATIONS Insufficient Scientific Information Several renowned forensic psychologists have argued that there is not enough sound behavioral science research that is relevant 107 108 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS to custody evaluations and decisions (e.g. Melton et al., 1997; Schepard,

Published: Jan 1, 2008

Keywords: Generalize Anxiety Disorder; Develop Lung Cancer; Child Custody; Forensic Psychologist; Psychiatric Emergency Room

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