Month: July 2018

Selective Recall of Mental Health Processionals

Posted on by Shawn Wygant, MA, TLLP

At PsychLaw.net we know that the expectations of mental health professionals can lead them to believe that symptoms consistent with their diagnostic impressions were exhibited in an interview; when in fact, they were not.  Conversely, they are also less likely to recall symptoms that were actually present during an interview but inconsistent with their diagnostic impressions.

These effects of selective memory were dramatically demonstrated in a 1979 experiment using college students.  The students read a story about a woman who exhibited both introverted and extroverted traits.  Two days later, half of the students were asked to assess how well this woman would do in a sales position ‑ a presumably extroverted career. Continue reading “Selective Recall of Mental Health Processionals” →

Research vs. Clinical Judgment

Posted on by Shawn Wygant, MA, TLLP

The recent case of People v. Banks[1] in New York demonstrates that reliance on “clinical judgment” is like “shooting from the hip”. Banks found trial judge Barbara Zambelli working her way through a complicated explication of clinical judgment and research based opinions. Banks is instructive because it involved a pitched battle over expert testimony regarding eyewitness identification and 1) the low correlation between a witness’s confidence and the accuracy of the witness’s identification; 2) the effect of post event information on accuracy of identification; and 3) research concerning the eyewitness identification phenomena of stress, partial disguise, own-race bias, and weapons focus. Here, we at PsychLaw.net find that  expert Steven Penrod and his examiners made it clear that although there was a great deal of anecdotal information on these phenomena, Penrod was relying on research, not “clinical judgment”. Continue reading “Research vs. Clinical Judgment” →

Psychotherapy and Triangulated Relationships

Posted on by Shawn Wygant, MA, TLLP

At PsychLaw.net we understand that when psychotherapists join with custodial parents as sympathetic allies, they can find themselves inducted into a perniciously triangulated relationship of “victim”, “villain” and “savior”.  Instead of disrupting these triangulated dynamics, therapists too often participate in them.  They endorse the custodial parent’s assessment of who the “villain” is, re‑define the custodial parent as a “victim” in addition to the children, and appoint themselves as “saviors” to protect these “victims” from the alleged malevolence of supposed “villains”. Continue reading “Psychotherapy and Triangulated Relationships” →

Effective Psychotherapy for Children of Divorce

Posted on by Shawn Wygant, MA, TLLP

We at PsychLaw.net feel that when psychotherapists respond effectively to children of divorce, they neither volunteer themselves ‑ nor accept induction ‑ as saviors.  Therapists who commit these errors sacrifice their objectivity; and this sacrifice usually leads them into situations where they are more a part of the problem than its solution.  Effective psychotherapy for children of divorce requires therapists to reduce the frequency and intensity of parental conflicts.  This outcome alleviates the loyalty conflicts which these children often endure; and in turn, the distress that originally necessitated their treatment begins to abate. Continue reading “Effective Psychotherapy for Children of Divorce” →