An Outline On Psychological Testing Child Custody

By Patrick Foster


When two parents decide they cannot take care of their children together, chances are disputes will arise on who should be left with them. As such, the intervention of a court of law is important in solving cases alike. Among many pieces of evidence used to ascertain the same, psychological testing child custody is paramount. Some factors that encourage legal advisers to carry out emotional assessment are claims of juvenile abuse, drug addicted parents, uncouth parenting manners as well as the presence of cognitive illnesses in family history. Notably, there are countless factors to help identify mental capacity which sometimes may be impossible to perform. These among many other reasons contribute to some of the disadvantages of these approaches. Discussed below are a few of them.

The custody assessment process involves a series of actions. Firstly, psychologist interview persons in question to collect various facts regarding the relationship with kids. Notably, there are no universal guidelines directing how interviews are carried out. Similarly, questions vary from one specialist to another.

Quality of each session performed by different interviewers cannot be verified. Since there are no uniform guidelines on interview procedures, judges cannot tell a skilled specialist from an unskilled one. Likewise, since each specialist has the freedom to ask any set of questions, they may be biased. For this reason, decisions made using this information could grant care to a wrong party.

Secondly, some tests are administered during the mental assessment. There are countless factors that promote unstable mental conditions. Such is determined by various tests including Rorschach inkblot among others. Universally, these tests do not follow a particular procedure. Thus, evaluation tools and the procedure was chosen vary from one expert to another.

Coming up with conclusive information on mental state requires the evaluation of countless medical conditions. Likewise, there are no stipulated tests that cut across. This means while psychologist A decides to perform checks 1, 2 and 3, another can do examination 3, 5 and 6. Relying on those results might, therefore, give wrong conclusions.

After screening and interviewing, experts explain results as well as recommendations. Since techniques of gathering information vary depending on specialists, results are also inconsistent. Markedly, conclusions made from results of tests performed during a certain time may be wrong. This is because behaviors change with time. A certain mental state could be contributed by specific factors existing at the time. Therefore assuming an individual will behave alike at all times is unfair.

Another limitation appears in the evaluation of results. This is done by a person who could not have a psychosomatic background. Interpretation of similar care data will greatly differ between experts significantly. Similarly, when collecting data from particular families, professionals can decide to lean on one side.

The above points show clearly how the interview is performed, to what tests are done, observations made as well as interpretation of results is a biased process. This means that custody verdict which depends on that process may be incorrect too. Judges should supplement with other evidence.




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