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How to Get a Mental Health Professional to Testify in Court

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  • 08-25-2014, 03:17 PM
    Mr. Knowitall
    Re: How to Get Mental Health Professional to Testify in Court
    A court-ordered evaluation would include you. The manner in which the evaluator would be paid will depend upon the circumstances. When the parties are relatively evenly situated, financially, the cost is typically split.
  • 08-25-2014, 03:23 PM
    frewer
    Re: How to Get Mental Health Professional to Testify in Court
    @Dogmatic, the current schedule is we both live together, but I spend far more time watching our daughter while she hides away and sleeps and deals with her depression (when she has the frequent episodes). Of course I fear she may try to change that pattern when this goes to court. I also fear she may try to fake her way through the test in order to pass the test if custody depended on it. Which is why past therapists and mutual friends (who are familiar with her issues) may be more accurate than an evaluation she might be able to fake her way through.
  • 08-25-2014, 03:54 PM
    Dogmatique
    Re: How to Get Mental Health Professional to Testify in Court
    Quote:

    Quoting frewer
    View Post
    @Dogmatic, the current schedule is we both live together, but I spend far more time watching our daughter while she hides away and sleeps and deals with her depression (when she has the frequent episodes). Of course I fear she may try to change that pattern when this goes to court. I also fear she may try to fake her way through the test in order to pass the test if custody depended on it. Which is why past therapists and mutual friends (who are familiar with her issues) may be more accurate than an evaluation she might be able to fake her way through.


    You believe that she's sophisticated enough to fool an impartial evaluator ... but she can't fool her friends? You do see how that looks, yes?

    Regardless, here's the deal.

    EVEN IF she has a diagnosis, this doesn't equate to you being the more suitable candidate for primary.

    Do you work? Does she work? Where is the child during work?
  • 08-25-2014, 06:37 PM
    tex11
    Re: How to Get Mental Health Professional to Testify in Court
    If you are working and mom is a stay at home, there is a good chance that shortly after divorce is filed, the judge will issue temporary orders naming mom as the custodial parent and you relegated to a standard visitation schedule and paying child support.

    Mom's therapist is not going to do you any favors against the interest of her client, will require a subpoena to testify, and as an expert witness has a right to collect in the ballpark of $130/hr from you to testify in court. It is not hard for a therapist to waffle, and play nicer for mom's attorney than yours. Which could end up doing the opposite of what you intended.

    If there are psychological issues that need to be properly addressed, your case may dictate a need for a court ordered psychological evaluation, which can be requested by either party. This is an impartial evaluation by a non-retained expert. Most often a licensed psychologist who is a PhD, which in turn will run a tab from $6K on up. Costs typically split by parties. It is an evaluation of ALL immediate family members, and you can expect yourself to be evaluated and tested, including ink blot, MMPI, and other testing, including interviews of each family member and phone interviews of collaterals (extended family, friends,...).

    That may also include a home study where the psychologist will visit what may be your presumably separate residences and observe how your child is with each parent.

    The evaluation may cut a little deep with regard to highlighting personality traits you may have minimized or are unaware of, and may place you in a light of having contributed to your wife's depression.

    The evaluation report will make custody recommendations that the court can accept or not. The psychologist will be required to testify if there is any dispute on the evaluation, and cost over $200 per hour, including time spent traveling to and from the hearing.

    If you feel your wife's therapist is a means to slam dunk custody in your favor, you are way off base.
  • 08-26-2014, 10:05 AM
    frewer
    Re: How to Get Mental Health Professional to Testify in Court
    Well we both are working. Do you think I'd let her stay home and mope all day long? Work is the only thing that gets her out of bed. But there are days that go by where she won't see her daughter, where she's too eaten up by depression to come out while I'm getting our daughter ready to go to the babysitter. Usually I have to take her into see her mom just so she'll have a goodbye kiss.

    So is $130 a standard figure that the court came up as compensation for expert testimony?

    That doesnt sound like much to me considering the therapist probably wouldnt spend more than an hour on the stand. The therapist has told me I need to make arrangements to raise the child away from the mother, but I just dont know if he were to be expected to testify, or to at least repeat to the court what he told me, but be assured that he would not end up siding with the mother, after all he's advised me, and I dont think he's the mother's therapist anymore since she refused to return to him after what he told her, and he is only talking to me now.
  • 08-26-2014, 01:27 PM
    Dogmatique
    Re: How to Get Mental Health Professional to Testify in Court
    Quote:

    Quoting frewer
    View Post
    Well we both are working. Do you think I'd let her stay home and mope all day long?

    This sentence has put it all in a nutshell. Really.

    Quote:

    That doesnt sound like much to me considering the therapist probably wouldnt spend more than an hour on the stand. The therapist has told me I need to make arrangements to raise the child away from the mother, but I just dont know if he were to be expected to testify, or to at least repeat to the court what he told me, but be assured that he would not end up siding with the mother, after all he's advised me, and I dont think he's the mother's therapist anymore since she refused to return to him after what he told her, and he is only talking to me now.
    Answer this please:

    (We can discuss the ethical considerations or, more accurately, the lack thereof, later)

    What exactly did this therapist say to you? Be careful here - because one of two things has happened and neither is good for your "case".
  • 08-26-2014, 02:05 PM
    JulesJam
    Re: How to Get a Mental Health Professional to Testify in Court
    Quote:

    Quoting frewer
    View Post
    My question involves a marriage in the state of: TX

    After unsuccesfully trying couples therapy for her severe depression, the therapist told me on the phone that my wife has mental disorders (BPD, bipolar) unrelated to me that prevent her from escaping her depression, which would greatly adversely impact her parenting ability. . . .

    The therapist was actually HER therapist paid by her insurance although I was brought in for couples therapy, so I'm wondering how HIPPA restricts what the therapist can tell me or the court.

    It's not a HIPAA issue once you are in court; it is a therapist-patient privilege issue.

    First, whether or not there is a therapist-patient privilege depends on the credentials of the therapist. An MD psychiatrist, definitely, it's a doctor-patient privilege. Other credentials like licensed psychologist and social worker, it varies by state.

    The general rule is that anything said during couples counseling is not privileged as to each other meaning if your wife tries to use the therapist-patient privilege to stop the therapist from testifying, at least as to what was divulged in couple's counseling, there is no privilege.

    However, if your state recognizes therapist-patient privilege given whatever credentials the therapist has, whatever your wife said in individual therapy including the therapist's conclusions drawn from those statements is privileged and you cannot compel the therapist to testify to those things UNLESS you can show that your wife did not keep those statements confidential, i.e., she told other people what went on in her therapy sessions. Additionally, your wife can give her consent for the therapist to testify if she chooses to.

    As for the statements to you by the therapist about your wife's condition, if your wife did not sign a HIPAA form authorizing the therapist to speak to you and given the therapist's credentials the therapy is regulated under the HIPAA laws, then the therapist has committed not only a HIPAA violation, but an ethical violation and malpractice also. I doubt you will get the therapist to admit he/she did that.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote:

    Quoting frewer
    View Post
    How does it work to get the therapist to testify to the court about my wife's mental condition?

    Since the therapist was a treating therapist in that he/she had your wife in individual therapy and you both in couples therapy, the therapist is a fact witness who can be subpoenaed for a deposition and should your divorce go to trial, to appear in court.

    However, if you are asking the therapist to testify about his/her conclusions drawn from individual therapy and in your state given the credentials of the therapist there is a therapist-patient privilege, your wife can object to allowing the therapist to testify and would win on that UNLESS you can show that your wife has disclosed the information to other people. For instance, if you wife has gone around telling people her therapist has diagnosed her with BPD, she has waived the privilege at least to the therapist testifying that he/she has diagnosed your wife with BPD.


    Quote:

    Quoting frewer
    View Post
    Do I ask the therapist do do a favor and testify?

    No, your attorney would tell the therapist that you want to depose him/her and your attorney would subpoena the therapist if he/she won't agree to the deposition.


    Quote:

    Quoting frewer
    View Post
    Would the therapist need to be paid?

    Yes, the therapis would need to be paid the witness fees authorized by your court. Moreover, you would pay for the attorney's time to depose the therapist as well as a court reporter to transcribe the deposition.
  • 08-26-2014, 02:27 PM
    cbg
    Re: How to Get a Mental Health Professional to Testify in Court
    HIPAA = Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act

    HIPAA. NOT HIPPA.
  • 08-26-2014, 02:28 PM
    JulesJam
    Re: How to Get a Mental Health Professional to Testify in Court
    Quote:

    Quoting cbg
    View Post
    HIPAA = Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act

    HIPAA. NOT HIPPA.

    I think HIPPA has a better ring to it.
  • 08-26-2014, 02:34 PM
    BooRennie
    Re: How to Get a Mental Health Professional to Testify in Court
    Quote:

    Quoting JulesJam
    View Post
    I think HIPPA has a better ring to it.

    If you can't be right, be wrong at the top of your voice. :encouragement:
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