Uncovering a Major Aspect of Fraud Perpetrated by Forensic Psychologists in Service of Child Protective Agencies

November 30, 2010

Re: Uncovering a Major Aspect of Fraud Perpetrated by Forensic Psychologists in Service of Child Protective Agencies
Dear Reader,

I have obtained your (or your organization’s) address from a list of lawyers and organizations who defend individuals from Child Protective Services (CPS) aggressive tactics found on the website www.fightcps.com. If you are not aware of having contacted fightcps.com, your information may have been posted this site by a third party. The intention of this letter is to present useful information to help defend your clients against forensic psychologists who use a fraudulent diagnostic practice that has a high probability of being overlooked.

There is much information on the Internet about a high prevalence of forensic psychologists who act as “hired guns” for CPS agencies. Their reports often over-pathologize their test subjects in an extreme manner. This is often done with poorly validated and highly subjective psychometric test instruments.

I have been helping a friend defend herself in what began as a trivial case of neglect of her then 10 year-old child. Like many parents trapped by in Child Protective Services - Family Court system, her only problem was lack of a job and not having a stable place to live. Such a situation is very common and does not even meet the Federal standards for neglect as defined by United States Department of Health and Human Services. This governmental body states that neglect must be intentional, not situational (e.g., unemployment due to the economic climate). Although often mandated to do so, CPS agencies almost never provide meaningful help in such situations. It appears that their intention is to strip away as many children as they can, placing them into foster care and eventual adoptions. This attitude has been promoted by the Adoption and Safe Families Act passed in 1997 (by unanimous vote in the Senate!) that gives social agencies $4,000 for each adoption they carry out. For an excellent short YouTube video on this matter enter the following URL into your browser: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9OoWRPHs24

Without any signs of any serious psychological problems, the social services agency coerced my friend to submit to two different psychological evaluations, each by a different forensic psychologist. While not a subject of this letter, coerced forensic psychological exams employed in this context violate one’s 5th Amendment right to refrain from self-incrimination. This has been supported by case law.

What I would like to discuss, and hopefully this is useful information, is that many forensic psychologists use a known MCMI-III test artifact as a means to harm their test takers. It has been observed that most custody litigants (including single mothers whose child is taken away) test defensively. Answering questions in a positive light is not pathological, it is a means to defend one’s legitimate interests, often in unfounded cases brought on by CPS agencies. I might add that many questions on the MCMI-III are often absurd and/or intimidating, which also promotes defensiveness.

While defensive testing tends to lower most scores, it has the artifactual effect of substantially raising MCMI-III base rate scores in Axis II Histrionic, Narcissistic, and Obsessive categories. McCann, et al. in “The MCMI-III in Child Custody Evaluations: A Normative Study” (Journal of Forensic Psychology Practice, Vol. 1(2), 2001) did an original investigation on this matter and determined that while most base rate scores were low in custody litigants, scores above 75 (Millon’s original cutoff for pathology) were found in the 39% of custody litigants in the Histrionic category; 22% in the Narcissistic category; and 36% in the Compulsive category. These scores tended to be higher in women than men, presenting an added problem for single mothers. Custody litigants had a much higher incidence of pathological scores than the general population (between 1% and 3%) even though the actual incident rates are similar. The easiest way to obtain a (free) copy of this manuscript is access it through Dr. James R. Flens’ website www.drjamesrflens.com under the Publications link.

Without going into too much detail here, McCann et al., instead of discussing the serious implications of a test artifact that results in substantially elevated psychopathology scores, did everything in their manuscript to “white wash” the study’s conclusions. Reading the manuscripts discussion section was extremely disconcerting. Instead of warning forensic psychologists to be cognizant of this bias and deal with it accordingly, the authors essentially concluded that the MCMI-III demonstrated no biases with respecting over-pathologizing evaluees. The authors went as far as to say that high Histrionic, Narcissistic, and Compulsive scores can be seen to represent favorable personality characteristics. This is incredulous! The conclusion imparted to forensic psychologists reading the article was essentially “Not to worry”. What a lost opportunity!

The topic of high MCMI-III base rate scores resulting from an artifact due to defensive test taking has been broached in a number of forensic psychology textbooks. I have done a brief survey of forensic textbooks and have found that this topic is covered briefly in most books (see below for some listings) and that it was not “white washed” in the same way that McCann, et al. did. However, these books did not mention any practical solutions. For a most definitive and clearly described study, please look up a Power Point presentation by Lenny and Dear posted on the Internet (LENNY_Paul1.ppt). This presentation includes some easy-to-interpret graphs that seriously indict the validity of the MCMI-III for custody litigants and single mothers caught in the system. Out of respect for copyright rules, I have not attached this presentation. However, I have included an abstract written in 2009 by Lenny and Dear entitled: “Faking Good on the MCMI-III: Implications for Child Custody Evaluations” as an attachment to my email. This abstract nicely summarizes the problem.

Getting back to my friend’s involvement with forensic evaluations and its severe implications. Both of her forensic psychologist evaluators mentioned that my friend tested defensively (determined by a high base rate score in Desirability) and reported elevations in her Histrionic, Narcissistic, and Obsessive scores. No other elevations were reported. Their forensic reports used these artificial elevations to launch scathing tirades against her by invoking of all the negative personality characteristics associated with Histrionic, Narcissistic, and Obsessive personality disorders. My friend does not possess any of the listed personality characteristics, but one of her evaluators incredulously claimed in his report that her behavior was characterized by “dramatic and repeated emotional outbursts” in various settings because of her high score in the Histrionic category. All of the negative personality characteristics mentioned in the forensic reports were manufactured by invoking the artifactually high base rate scores and working backwards. This amounts to scientific fraud.

It is interesting to note that Histrionic and Obsessive personalities show opposing characteristics of exuberance versus rigid suppression, so it is unlikely that a person would be suffering from both.

Pearson Assessments, vendor of the MCMI-III and other psychometric tests is also highly complicit in this mischief. First: Pearson Assessments has arbitrarily reduced Millon’s cutoff for pathology from base rate scores of 75 to 65; Second they have no correction mechanism for the artifactually high Histrionic, Narcissistic, and Obsessive scores; and Third: Their computer generated Interpretations, used by 79% of forensic psychologists, are extremely pathologizing. I found a sample evaluation by Pearson Assessments on their website and found the scathing psychological description of the test evaluee to be horrifying. Psych Screen, Inc., another company also interprets MCMI-III evaluations, gave a sample Interpretative report for an 11 year-old child (www.psychscreen.com/singletest/sam_mcmi.html), that was even more disconcerting than the Pearson Assessments sample report. It made the child to appear a monster. I would love to see some savvy attorney(s) delve into this matter and institute a lawsuit against Pearson Assessments or any other companies that provide highly unfair, biased reports that ultimately help Child Protective Services execute their unfounded cases.

My friend lost custody of her son, largely due to the highly negative psychological reports. Before losing custody, the reports’ content and recommendations were employed by CPS to stop all phone calls with her son (for more than a year) and severely limit visitation rights.

I believe that the forensic psychologist is a vulnerable part of the run-amok child removal system. I hope that the information I have provided in this letter can help you in future cases defending against over-prosecution by CPS agencies. I also hope that it might be possible for you to appeal previous lost cases in which elevations in Histrionic, Narcissistic, and/or Obsessive scores were reported. Such fraud may be considered blatant enough to enable lawyers to win lawsuits against forensic expert witnesses even thought the courts historically have protected such witnesses. Forensic experts are given immunity to protect against frivolous attacks against their testimony. I don’t believe that this immunity could stand in cases of outright and substantive fraud.

I believe that if it is found that such fraud has been used historically on a large scale or even to a lesser degree, that this will present as a major vulnerability in Child Protective Services agencies that we have all been waiting for. I believe, for example, that the MCMI-III test artifact has been used frequently in the past by the two forensic psychologists who falsely indicted my friend. Uncovering and publicizing a scandal of this magnitude could be the beginning of the end of CPS and Family Courts hegemony over innocent parents and their children.

Here is a partial listing of books that contain relevant information of the MCMI-III test artifact:

“New Directions in Interpreting the Millon Clinical Multiaxial: Inventory-III”, Robert J. Craig, pp. 122-123, 2005.

“The Scientific Basis of Child Custody Decisions”, Robert M. Galatzer-Levy, Louis Kraus, Jeanne Galatzer-Levy, p. 114, 2005

“Clinician's Guide to Child Custody Evaluations”, Marc J. Ackerman, pp. 153-154, 2006.


Sincerely,
Gerald M. Rubin, Ph.D.
PO Box 110721
Aurora, CO 80042
geraldmrubin@aol.com

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