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Thank you for your interest in bringing
my expertise in
child development
and family functioning to
bear
on planned or on-going
litigation.
This page answers the
most
common questions that
arise
when family law
professionals
inquire about my services.
Please don't hesitate to
contact me directly
at any time to discuss
any of these
and related matters 
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"Tell me a little bit
about yourself ..."
Some
years ago I was startled to
learn that a respected forensic psychologist had left family law in
favor of working in criminal law. When I asked why, she explained
simply, "Its easier."
That incident stays with me as a reminder of the nature of the work
that we do. She was right: It is easier to work with accused rapists
and murderers than with moms and dads who fear losing their children.
This is in part because criminal law is much more black and white than
family law. It is at least equally due to the profoundly personal
experience of the parent-cum-litigant who suddenly has nothing, whose
every foible is being used against him or her, and who is forced to
parade
this reality through a public courtroom.
Fortunately, New Hampshire's evolving laws and emerging family courts
are easing some of these pressures. The move from "custody" and its
sense of ownership to parenting rights and responsibilities burdens our
language but clarifies the process. The move from "complainant" and
"defendent" to parents with names is another step in the right
direction .
Read
more on our courts at right
I didn't set out to work in family law. Perhaps like you,
I've landed
here as the result of an evolution. Mine began more than twenty years
ago when I refused to accept that 6 out of every ten children referred
to my clinical practice had Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD or
ADHD) .
When I began to look beyond the child to understand the family, I found
that at
least half of these children lived in a war zone. Their parents lived
together but didn't communicate, lived apart, were divorcing or
divorced. One
way or another, they were caught in the middle. Of
course they couldn't pay attention in school and acted out impuslively!
But unlike those children whose brains are genuinely starved for
stimulation , these
children are victims of family dysfunction. They don't need
medicine, IEPs and psychotherapy, they need the calm and prectability
that comes from an end to
co-parental conflict.
Throughout the course of this evolution, I have remained steadfastedly
focused on meeting children's needs. I am not an advocate for adults. I
will not work with you to see that mom's or dad's needs and wishes are
fulfilled by the courts. My commitment is to see that the court better
understands and serves the best interests of the child. To the extent
that we share that commitment, I look forward to the prospect of
working with you.
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Our
family courts are changing in the right direction,
but still have
a long way to go.
 Early case evaluation: Some states
prescreen family litigants in an effort to reach early resolutions
and/or shunt them toward non-combative alternatives.
Mandatory mediation (excluding
domestic violence matters). The courts can make use of existing
mediation opportunities earlier and more often.
Empower parenting coordination .
Evidence from around the world demonstrates reduced recidivism when
conflicted co-parents can turn to a PC for prompt resolution, meaning
that kids' needs are being met better and
faster. New Hampshire's legislature must reify this role.
Parenting plans must anticipate
development rather than implicitly require renewed litigation as the
child grows, as needs and abilities change.
Parent
education: The present Child Impact Seminar is too little, too late.
High risk parents who enter the courts, those identified by child
protective services, those identified through child health care
systems, and those who are identified through the schools should
participate in mandatory parenting and co-parenting education.
Costs? Preventing divorce, domestic violence, child abuse and
revolving door litigation is a net dollar savings to all, as well as
our overdue responsibility to the next generation.
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I'd like to hire
Dr. Garber ...
Following
are links to some of the preliminary materials that family law
professionals often seek:
 My curriculum vitae
A list of my publications and links
to recent professional articles
Some
of my recent professional presentations
A discussion of my work as Guardian
ad Litem
A discussion of my work as
Parenting Coordinator
About my expert
witness/consultation services
About parental alienation in family
law
About psychotherapy with
court-involved individuals, couples and co-parents
About psychotherapy with children of divorce
Does Dr. Garber provide
psychological testing?
Please
be
advised that I do not keep a list of cases or courts that I have
appeared in.
Regarding costs and availability:
Court-involved services are
charged on an hourly basis inclusive of all time (e.g., travel,
document review, report preparation, deposition, testimony). Most such
services require advance receipt of funds held as a retainer against
anticipated costs subject to replenishment. Specific costs and
retainers vary by the type of work and anticipated time requirements.
These specifics as well as details concerning confidentilaity and
privilege, ethical, legal and practical limitations, will be delivered
at the outset of our relationship in the form of a service agreement.
What is a service agreement? In
order to clarify the nature and limits of our work relationship from
the start, I will prepare a document which clarifies details such as:
My
qualifications and relevant
oversight agencies
Definition
of who is my client (the family law professional? The litigant? The
child?)
The
nature and scope of the work that I will (and will not) perform
Service
costs per hour, retainer funds (as relevant) and conditions
Limitations
associated with confidentilaity and privilege
Conflict
of interest and dual role clarification
Procedures
should complaints arise
Sample service agreements are provided on this website,
including:
Child
Centered Family Evaluation (CCFE) sample service agreement
Parenting
Coordination (PC) sample service agreement
Guardian
ad litem (GAL) sample stipulation
Expert
opinion/consultation sample service agrement
Co-parenting
sample service agreement
Psychotherapy
with children of divorce sample service agreement
Please see the Forensic Services
Package for more
In
addition, HIPAA may require that clients complete addition paperwork
(Please
understand that these are generic samples provided for illustration
only.
The details of the service agreement that I prepare for the matter
that
prompts your query may differ substantially.)
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Will Dr. Garber work as my expert in court?
Across
my roles as individual, couples and family therapist, as
court-appointed evaluator, Guardian ad
litem, and parenting
coordinator, as an internationally received speaker and author, my
singular goal is to help caregivers, communities and the courts to
better understand and meet the needs of
children.
For
this reason, before agreeing to work as an expert, I
will always first determine whether I can serve the child[ren]'s needs
in a neutral, non-partisan role. Depending on the nature of the
litigation, this may mean:
Conducting a child-centered family
evaluation (CCFE)
Serving as the child[ren]'s therapist
Serving as Guardian ad litem (GAL)
Serving as Parenting Coordinator
When these and similar roles are not practical, its sometimes possible
to preserve my neutrality and avoid the familiar "hired gun" and
"dueling expert" dilemmas when one party is willing to hire me to
work as an expert consultant to another professional already serving in
one of these role. For example,
Expert consultant to the GAL
When these options are
exhausted, I will agree to work as one party's expert witness or
consultant. However, even working in
your employ, I will reserve the
right to offer a child-centered opinion that may differ substantially
from your own or that of your client.
To learn more, read this sample expert
consultant service agreement
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Care to read more?
Chapter 15
in
"Developmental Psychology For Family
Law Professionals"
(Springer, 2009)
addresses
the topic of
psychological testing
in family law matters
in detail.
Learn more now
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What
should
the court do instead?
Require offers of proof
establishing why one party's mental health status is relevant to the
matter at hand. The allegation that "dad is depressed" in the context
of a contested "custody" matter should be assumed to be as benign as
"dad wears red socks" unless and until it is established that the
supposed mental health concern has a direct bearing on parenting or
co-parenting practices.
Never
simply order "psychological testing." Skilled psychologists who
conduct such testing want the court to articulate one or more
specific questions that need to be
Rather
than order psychological testing for each of two parents and be left
to wonder if and how the results are relevant to the child's
well-being, order
a child-centered family evaluation (CCFE) and have questions regarding
how best to meet the child's needs adressed clearly, concisely and
directly.
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About
psychological testing in family law...
I am
trained
in the administration, scoring, interpretation and critical review of
many standardized psychological instruments. I seldom use them in my
court-related practice. Here's why:
The field of
psychology was established as distinct from psychiatry and maintains
its autonomy and integrity in the present in part because of its
emphasis on measurement. Psychologists are commonly (but not
uniformly!) trained to administer, score and interpret standardized
instruments intending to measure a very broad spectrum of human
thinking, feeling and behavior.
Psychological testing in its various forms can be enormously helpful
answering questions about an individual's diagnosis, prognosis and
treatment. It can help employers determine an individual's
qualifications for a specific type of
employment. It can aid the criminal courts in determining whether an
individual has the mental capacity to participate in his or her own
defense, and the schools in determining how best to educate a
particular
student. Psychological testing can even be useful characterizing an
individual's unique constellation of personality
strengths and weaknesses.
In short, when used appropriately, psychological testing can provide
valuable, valid and reliable information about an individual. However,
because family law is about the relationships or "fit" between two or
more individuals ,
psychological testing can be less than useful in this context. For
example,
Psychological
testing may provide details about each of two contesting parents'
personalities, but cannot determine which one these parents
is best suited to care for their kids.
Psychological testing may tell us more
about a child's social, emotional, intellectual, academic and/or
developmental strengths and weaknesses, but cannot determine which
parent he or she should live with.
Psychological testing cannot determine why
an intimate adult relationship failed, why a child has rejected one
parent or prefers another, or whether two adults will be able to put
aside their difference to adequately co-parent together.
In fact, psychological testing can create more
problems than it
solves in family law matters by needlessly introducing observations,
conclusions and recommendations with no relevance to the matter at
hand, including:
DSM
IV or ICD-10 diagnoses
Recommendations for
interventions and/or further testing
Mistaking the anxiety and
resistance typical among litigants for psychopathology
Exposure of past
psychological testing or psychotherapy into the record
Once introduced into litigation, these and related matters
can take on
a life of their own, requiring the additional delays and expense
associated with orders for further testing ("to clarify"), compliance
with and completion of interventions (e.g., "anger management therapy"
or "parent training") and the needless layers of experts
employed to refute testing outcomes, to impugn the tester and his or
her procedures, and/or to make sure that neither parent is maligned and
humiliated more than the other.
Should we order both
parties to
complete psychological testing? Mom alleges that dad is
depressed, therefore her attorney motions the court requesting that he
submit to psychological testing. The GAL counters that both should
undergo similar batteries. The court endorses the GAL's motion.
Thousands of dollars and many weeks later, the court has two more
twenty page documents to review.
Time and again, this logic is invoked in the interest of avoiding the
appearance of
favoritism. One imagines that by obtaining psychological testing on
both of two contesting caregivers, an apples-to-apples comparison will
reveal who is healthier and the matter will then be quickly be settled.
If the relevant variable was height or weight or even IQ, this approach
would make sense. Measure both parents and the one who is taller,
fatter or smarter (or perhaps best two out of three?) wins "custody"
-er- allocation of future residential resposnibility. For
better or worse, within obvious extremes, there are no such variables
to measure. Family law matters are about the quality of realtionships
or the "fit" between people .
In fact, ordering both parties to undergo psychological
testing can be
even more damaging than having only one party do so, because:
Twice
the costs are incurred, exhausting resources which are better devoted
to the child's needs
Greater delays often occur
as professionals are employed, schedules are coordinated and reports
are produced.
Impossible apples-to-oranges
comparisons result when Dr. A tests mom and Dr. B tests dad (were the
same instruments employed? Were those instruments administered and
scored in the same manner?...)
Equally impossible arguments
arise about sequence effects due to
concerns that the professional's experience with one party contaminated
his
or her experience with the second.
Its
all about "fit"
A
mechanic might be able to define those measurable attributes which make
one car better than another, but would still need to know about
your unique driving needs, practices, and preferences in order to
determine which vehicle is best suited to you.
In
a similar manner, psychology
knows very little about the qualities of a "good" parent within obvious
extremes. Most family law matters (e.g., custody, termination of
parental rights, reunification, visitation resistance,
alienation/estrangement) must be considered in terms of the quality of
the "fit" between caregiver and child; that is, how does the adult's
unique attributes, parenting practices, communication skills and
activity level (among many such variables) match the child's unique
needs?
Parents
talk about the idea of "fit" every September when
the kids learn who their teachers will be. Mom believes that Sally
needs structure and has heard that Mrs. Smith is too lenient. Dad
thinks that Mr. Jones is too tough for Kyle's sensitive nature. Grandma
complains that Ms. Black isn't nurturing enough for Mark and that Ms.
White is too much of a push-over for cute-but-manipulative little
Billy.
Within
extremes, the same is true when the court is asked to allocate
parenting rights and responsibilities. The question is NOT which parent
has the higher education, the more impressive home, the greater first
aid training, better sense of humor, collection of lacrosse equipment,
the best gaming systems, or even the least anxiety or depression. The
question is how
this specific child-parent relationship works within the context of
their lives.
Only a
Child-Centered Family Evaluation (CCFE)
can adequately address "fit" when the
allocation of parenting rights and responsibilities is at issue
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"Testing"
refers to the administration, scoring and interpretation of
standardized instruments. This is a quantitive process. Among the
familiar psychological tests are the MMPI-2, the WISC-IV and the
Rorschach Inkblot Test.
By contrast, "assessment" or "evaluation" refers to the
qualitative process of collecting, reviewing and integrating a breadth
of data for the purpose of characterizing an individual or the
relationships among individuals. In some instances, assessment can
incorporate testing as one among many convergent means of observation.
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Does evidence of
psychopathology have any necessary relationship to parenting, to
co-parenting or bearing on the allocation of parenting rights and
responsibilities?
At the extremes,
absolutely. The
adult who cannot get out of bed in the morning due to deep depression,
who cannot leave the house due to anxiety, who is actively
hallucinating or delusional is not likely to be a sensitive and
responsive caregiver. For these individuals, psychological
testing can document what is already evident through interview, history
and references. It may be helpful in prescribing appropriate remedies established as preconditions to
exercising
parenting time. But in these instances, is it worth the time and
expense?
And for the rest of us?
Psychological testing may reveal lesser degrees of anxiety and
depression (quite common among those whose marriages fail and who fear
losing contact with their children) and might even suggest Axis II
character pathology (e.g., narcissistic personality disorder), but the
relevance of these insights for parenting is likely to be unclear at
best.
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But my client is a non-traditional
caregiver ...
A
child-centered approach is blind to gender, sexual identity and
orientation, and generation. It is irrelevant whether the caregivers
involved are male or female, the child's genetic or biological parents,
grandparents, uncle/aunt or neighbors. Your client's sexual interests
and activities don't matter so long as the children are neither
involved nor exposed. For that matter, your client's religious and
political ideas, practices and affiliations are irrelevant so long as
no one is being harmed.
From a psychologist's point of view, only the caregiver's capacity and
willingness to understand and meet the child's needs and the
(potential) quality of the relationship between caregiver and child
within their community should have a direct bearing on the future
allocation of parenting rights and responsibilities.
I have had the privilege of assisting the court in various capacities
to serve the needs of children with caregivers from different
generations, of the same gender, who are transgendered, who are
involved in bondage, discipline and sadomasochism, and who live on
different continents (to name just a few). Across this great variety of
circumstances and choices, the question is always the same: How can the
child's needs best be met?
Of course, the law often sees these matters quite differently, and
these
differences themselves differ by jurisdiction. One of the greatest
challenges of this work is finding that intersection between psychology
and the law in which the child's best interests can be served.
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Thank you,
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09.07.2010
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