Raymond J. Havlicek, PhD
Psychologist
Clinical & Forensic Psychology
Diplomate in Clinical Psychology,
American Board of Professional Psychology
Fellow, American Academy of Clinical Psychology
220 South Service Road, Suite 23 30 Cayuga Way
Roslyn Heights, NY 11577 Lake Placid, NY 12946
516-484-5388 518-441-9426
http://www.drhavlicek.com RHavlicek@aol.com
April 21, 2005
Opening Comment to the Commission:
The family, broken or intact, is the incubator from which our society’s next generation of good and bad derives. Effective co-parenting, when possible, is the foundation upon which divorced families thrive.
The family’s protection and advancement becomes a sacred, social trust when parents are no longer able to preserve their families’ functional integrity, which if not sufficiently restored, will surely compromise their children’s capacities to reach their full human potential.
Irrespective of families’ ability to pay, our state’s children, caught in the middle of their parents’ legal conflicts regarding custody and other related issues deserve the best possible assessment and intervention services. Our State should provide the needed funding to uniformly provide for these assessments and interventions described in my presentation.
Our adversarial legal system, while delivering justice, may be unintentionally intensifying the suffering of the state’s children caught in the middle and may be needlessly intensifying their parents’ struggle to “win,” by not adequately addressing their needs for adequate and appropriate assessment and intervention.
I. Among my Qualifications:
1. I have 37 years experience in the mental health professions; a PhD in Psychology; licensed as a NYS psychologist and permanently certified as a NYS school psychologist.
2. I am board certified in Clinical Psychology by the American Board of Professional Psychology.
3. I am a Fellow of the American Academy of Clinical Psychology.
4. I have been a full time assistant professor of psychology.
5. I have been extensively involved in providing graduate and post graduate professional education.
6. I have conducted numerous court appointed forensic evaluations.
7. I have reviewed the work of other court appointed forensic evaluators, and provide case consultation services to forensic professionals.
8. I have decades of experience working with families in crisis.
9. I have considerable experience in the assessment of domestic violence.
10. I have considerable experience in the assessment of allegations of child sexual abuse particularly in contested child custody cases.
11. I have considerable experience assessing and treating children alienated from one of their parents.
12. I am a founding member of the Parent Coordinators Association of New York State (PCANYS).
13. I have served as a Trustee of the National Sports Academy
14. I have furthered the prevention of violence with our school aged children by presenting to adolescents, teachers, school administrators and parents information to assist in: the recognition of warning signs of violence; methods of intervention and alternative dispute resolution.
15. I have been a long standing proponent of pre and post judgment professional intervention to enable families in crisis resolve their conflicts civilly.
II. My Recommendations for improving the Quality of Court Ordered Forensic Evaluations:
1. High Conflict matrimonial litigation involves families, interacting with an adversarial justice system that as a consequence frequently become more distressed and less capable of appropriate problem solving. In turn, the extreme and sole emphasis on trying to “win” greatly intensifies and lengthens the suffering of their children. High conflict parents lacking appropriate management skills cause their families to be unable to self-regulate and/or self-correct. The combined influence of both the adversarial justice system and lack of appropriate management skills is overwhelming. These parents frequently go to our courts in an attempt to “win” rather than seek rational solutions, because all too frequently the rational solutions are not available or effectively promoted. Custody modifications, while sometimes appropriate, are at best only a part of the solution needed to reduce conflict. The impact upon these families having chronic, unresolved high conflict, exacerbated by our mainly adversarial justice system, is incalculable and will be measured by their children’s failure to reach their full human potential. In addition, such families have a higher incidence of distress, depression, substance abuse, anxiety, underachievement and ADD.
2. Forensic experts must be selected from senior mental health professionals, who have had many years of successful practice assessing and treating families, parents, and children in crisis and who have been recognized by their respective communities as effective, intelligent, ethical family practitioners. This qualification would promote the likelihood that the forensic expert has a demonstrated positive, effective, professional track record, which may be applied to families in crisis within the legal system. By definition, such practitioners have survived the test of consistent evaluative and treatment success at the independent practice level, enhancing the likelihood the expert will be well qualified to render forensic and intervention services within the legal system.
3. In order to ensure New York State moves in the direction of providing maximum appropriate intervention to reduce conflict and continuing litigation, it is essential high conflict families be fully assessed for the purpose of providing optimal direction to whatever intervention may follow. Thus, the forensic expert must be able to make prescriptive recommendations to reduce conflict and assist as much as possible in the decision making process. This information, when properly constructed, may assist Courts direct high conflict families towards appropriate decisions and helpful intervention.
4. Forensic experts should have special, advanced training in domestic violence, substance abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, triangulation and alienation. In addition, forensic experts must be educated as to the various available intervention models including case management, parent coordination, reconstructive therapeutic intervention, supervised and therapeutic visitation.
5. Forensic experts should participate in routine continuing education, and peer review. Forensic experts should have their work supervised for the first 5 years, by a senior forensic expert having at least 10 years of experience, and who has dual qualifications as a forensic psychologist as well as a Parent Coordinator.
6. Forensic reports must meet all applicable ethical guidelines.
7. A properly constructed forensic report could be of invaluable assistance to intervening professionals and courts considering best interests interventions and custody determinations, because the report could recommend solutions to the high conflict parties, which might enable alternative conflict resolution. Post judgment intervention is essential to provide opportunities for new and improved alternative dispute resolution and the appropriate implementation of a recommended/agreed upon/ordered “parenting plan.”
8. When possible, the best forensic reports should positively engage parents in litigation by effectively challenging them to reach their stated objectives regarding the best interests of their children, in the least invasive, most conservative, minimally destabilizing manner possible.
9. Forensic experts must be highly experienced at developing positive, appropriate co-parenting plans and recommending alternative methods of dispute resolution specifically tailored to each case. Hence, forensic experts should have much experience in case management and/or parent coordination and/or therapeutic intervention for problematic visitation in addition to their respective required professional education.
III. Trends and New Models of Intervention:
Parent Coordination utilizes alternative dispute resolution methods to reduce conflict by assisting families settle their conflicts civilly. Reliance on mediation, improved communication skills, understanding the needs of children and the needs of opposing parents is emphasized to achieve constructive engagement and reduced family conflict and stress. Additionally, parent coordinators assist parents implement co-parenting plans previously agreed upon by the parties or ordered by a court. Forensic experts should be called upon to provide well thought out recommendations for parenting plans as an integral part of our reports, which may assist the parties succeed once they begin to work with a parent coordinator. As such, the parent coordination process attempts to eliminate interactions and understandings that can go wrong as well as eliminate the all too frequently observed escalation in conflict that may over shadow parents’ best intentions. At all times, parent coordinators are sensitive to and try to educate parents that there may be better or worse solutions to a problem, but the most impairing condition is the conflict per se.
This non-psychotherapeutic, contemporaneous, alternative dispute resolution technique requires advanced, multi-disciplinary skills to work effectively. Parent coordinators are attorneys, licensed social workers or psychologists with specialized, multidisciplinary, advanced training, skills and years of experience.
Without needed specialized advanced skills there is great risk of harm to an already distressed family system. Courts should only appoint parent coordinators who either meet or exceed the recommended education, training and skills as described by the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC) and/or by the Parent Coordination Association of New York State (PCANYS).
Professionals with the requisite advanced, multidisciplinary and specialized skills offer families in crisis great potential for reduced conflict and litigation.
Parent Coordinators must have years of experience addressing matrimonial-conflict and related issues.
The Parent Coordination Association of New York State (PCANYS) is currently developing requirements for parent coordinators, which will either meet or exceed the recommendations of the nation-wide Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC) Task Force.
It is essential Courts appoint professionals to operate as parent coordinators only when the professional meets the standards of practice of AFCC and/or PCANYS.
It would be best if court appointed forensic experts were also parent coordinators. Court appointed forensic experts should be very familiar with the various forms of post judgment intervention to enable them to include those recommendations, when appropriate, in their reports.
Where possible and appropriate, conflicting parents in litigation should be offered the possibility of consenting to a “cooling off” period, during which various forms of intervention could be attempted to avoid the emotional and financial cost of further litigation and to attempt alternative methods of dispute resolution. A “cooling off” period could be offered with complete confidentiality to ensure the parties that the results of such an effort would not be accessed by the courts.
TRANSCRIPT OF MY TESTIMONY:
14 We have with us a presenter which is supposed
15 to speak this afternoon, but we can hear from him
16 right now, and that's Dr. Raymond Havlicek.
17 Is he here?
18 RAYMOND HAVLICEK: Yes, I'm here.
19 HON. SONDRA MILLER: Doctor?
20 RAYMOND HAVLICEK: Did you want to call me
21 now?
22 HON. SONDRA MILLER: Yes, we'd like to call
23 you now.
24 RAYMOND HAVLICEK: Oh, my goodness! Okay.
25 HON. SONDRA MILLER: Well, we're sure you're
118
1 Matrimonial Commission Hearing
2 prepared.
3 RAYMOND HAVLICEK: Thank you. Uh, I am sort
4 of prepared. I was expecting 1:30 this afternoon,
5 but I'm sure this will -- will do. I have some
6 prepared notes that I've provided outside, so
7 perhaps they'll be circulated. I'd just like to
8 read a brief preamble -- preamble to my remarks.
9 The family, broken or intact, is the
10 incubator from which our society's next generation
11 of good and bad derives. Effective co-parenting,
12 when possible, is the foundation upon which
13 divorced families thrive. I very, very strongly
14 believe that and have always been a very strong
15 advocate of that.
16 The families' protection and advancement
17 becomes a sacred social trust when parents are no
18 longer able to preserve their family's functional
19 integrity which if not sufficiently restored will
20 surely compromise their children's capacities to
21 reach their full human potential.
22 Irrespective of families's ability to pay,
23 our state's children, caught in the middle of
24 their parent's legal conflicts regarding custody
25 and other related issues, deserve the best
119
1 Matrimonial Commission Hearing
2 possible assessment and intervention services.
3 Our state should provide the needed funding
4 to uniformly provide for these assessments and
5 interventions described in my presentation.
6 Our adversarial legal system, while
7 delivering justice, may be unintentionally
8 intensifying the suffering of the state's children
9 caught in the middle and may be needlessly
10 intensifying their parents' struggle to win by not
11 adequately addressing their needs for adequate and
12 appropriate assessment and intervention.
13 So, having said that, I just -- I'll tell you
14 a little bit about myself. I'm -- I am a licensed
15 psychologist in New York State. I have 37 years
16 of experience in mental health. I started in 1968
17 as a permanently certified school psychologist in
18 the state. In 1975 I was licensed as a
19 psychologist. So I've been around for a long
20 time. And, uh, feel it a little bit in my back
21 occasionally, frankly, but, uh, uh, uh, I've been
22 very deeply involved in -- in -- in working with
23 families of high -- high conflict and divorce and
24 all that goes along with that for many, many, many
25 years, and I have done many assessments. I've
120
1 Matrimonial Commission Hearing
2 never counted them, but there's many that I've
3 done.
4 Uh, I'm a Diplomate in clinical psychology, a
5 Fellow of the American Academy of Clinical
6 Psychology. I've been an assistant professor of
7 psychology. I have been very involved. I won't
8 bore you with all of it, but one of the things I'm
9 most proud about right now is that I'm a founding
10 member of the Parent Coordinators Association of
11 New York State. Uh, which is a great group of --
12 of forensic psychologists and social workers, uh,
13 that I've had the privilege of working with since
14 last summer, uh, to try to form an association
15 that will further this new and wonderful concept,
16 intervention called parent coordination. Parent
17 coordination is a nonpsychotherapeutic tactic
18 that's designed around the concept of mediation,
19 better communication, education, in order to give
20 warring parties the opportunity to try hard to
21 reduce the stress and come to some conclusions
22 that might reach their goals.
23 One of the feelings that I have in -- in
24 dealing with forensics is I believe the process
25 distorts how people react. So psychologists who
121
1 Matrimonial Commission Hearing
2 are expected or forensic experts who are expected
3 to come to certain kinds of conclusions about
4 people and make recommendations to, uh, courts,
5 uh, have to deal with the fact that the system
6 itself is affecting the way people respond to our
7 tests and our interviews and -- and our inquiries
8 to make a best interest type of recommendation to
9 the courts. And this is really very difficult for
10 us, because you have to try to take the parties
11 out of the litigation that they're in the middle
12 of and the distorting effect that that litigation
13 has on them, realizing that the conflict and
14 stress that they're having may actually even limit
15 their ability to understand their options in the
16 court system and what's in the best interests of
17 their children. Try to take them out of that and
18 subject them to a procedure that enables them to
19 mediate their -- their differences, uh, in a
20 manner that brings civility, that brings about a
21 reduction in stress and possibly even a -- a some
22 sort of a conclusion to, uh -- to their -- to
23 their problems with each other, in terms of the
24 legal system that is. Uh, this is a -- a
25 wonderful technique that is being used throughout
122
1 Matrimonial Commission Hearing
2 the country. It is being used in California, in
3 Colorado, and, uh, there's a group of us that are
4 really quite determined to try to establish
5 standards, uh, for, uh, this procedure.
6 HON. SONDRA MILLER: Can you explain this
7 procedure to us, Doctor? Can you explain the
8 procedure?
9 ROBERT HAVLICEK: Yes. The -- the procedure,
10 really involves primarily mediation; a well
11 trained, experienced professional. Could be an
12 attorney, could be a psychologist, could be a
13 social worker, would meet with the parties and try
14 to develop an understanding of what they're
15 fighting about, what -- what are the issues that
16 they're tormented about and they believe they just
17 have to have a success in custody in order to
18 resolve those issues. And what the, uh, parent
19 coordinator does is try to calmly and civilly try
20 to work out a form of parenting, uh, that the
21 parties previously agreed on or was ordered by a
22 court to -- to explain to them that if the
23 fighting is temporarily at least put aside, and
24 the parties try to reach compromises on parenting,
25 and decision-making and the issues that are
123
1 Matrimonial Commission Hearing
2 important for the children, that it might be
3 possible to improve the way the parties function
4 with one another, to possibly even to the point
5 where the litigation itself may very well not even
6 be necessary. Uh, my own --
7 HON. SONDRA MILLER: At what stage of the
8 process does this begin?
9 ROBERT HAVLICEK: We've -- we feel very
10 strongly that it should begin after the judgment,
11 so we believe that the -- although I strongly
12 believe, outside of parenting coordination, that
13 other efforts should be recommended by courts to
14 give them a cooling off period, to give them the
15 opportunity to calm down and to try to work
16 reasonably with a professional that can talk some
17 sense to them and educate them about their
18 children, and their children's needs. Parent
19 coordination, the way I conceptualize it, and I
20 believe the way this group that I'm working with,
21 Parent Coordination Association of New York State,
22 uh, conceptualizes it as a post judgment
23 procedure. So that we want to know what the
24 forensic experts in the case, or the parties, or
25 the judge, has decided upon custody and the
124
1 Matrimonial Commission Hearing
2 disposition of parenting. How parenting will be
3 actually implemented. We want to know about that.
4 So in this way we don't have to argue with the
5 parties about the most contentious issues, but
6 rather, instead, bring to the parties the idea of
7 this predetermined parenting plan and then help or
8 assist the parties to implement that -- that plan
9 through a process of mediation and parenting at
10 all times. I've -- this is my own personal
11 belief, I don't know that everyone else agrees
12 with me, but I believe that we have a -- an actual
13 obligation to try very hard to teach parties that
14 there could be a right answer, there could be a
15 wrong answer, but the thing that's really the
16 worse thing at all is the conflict itself in terms
17 of what it does to the children, the psychological
18 damage that it does to the children, and, of
19 course, as well as parties.
20 So, at any rate, uh, parent coordination is a
21 post judgment issue, as far as I'm concerned. I
22 -- I do believe, and I wrote in my document that I
23 provided to the Commission, uh, my belief that
24 cooling off periods before judgment could be done
25 privately without affecting or impacting the due
125
1 Matrimonial Commission Hearing
2 process rights of the litigants because it could
3 be kept confidential so it would not go into the
4 court record, to give them every single
5 opportunity to work with experienced, qualified,
6 motivated, passionate, indeed, professionals who
7 could teach civility, problem solving,
8 co-parenting, mediation, compromise, all of the
9 skills that go into other divorced families that
10 are functioning appropriately. Divorced families
11 that are functioning appropriately have those
12 skills, and they seem to do just fine with them.
13 It's that small percentage of the very high
14 conflict ones that don't have those skills that we
15 would like to try to affect.
16 HON. SONDRA MILLER: Would -- why wouldn't
17 you want that process to begin at the inception,
18 when the divorce is first commenced?
19 ROBERT HAVLICEK: Well, truthfully, your
20 Honor, I would like it to happen, but there is a
21 feeling -- I'm being very truthful now, there's a
22 feeling in our group that -- that it's bet -- we
23 believe that we should seek the direction of the
24 Court first, or the parties, directing us as to
25 the -- the issue of perhaps custody, the issue of
126
1 Matrimonial Commission Hearing
2 what the parenting plan could be. That is a
3 conservative position that many of the members of
4 my association have. There are others that
5 believe we should try to use these same procedures
6 prejudgment, but the -- I suppose the belief is --
7 is that -- that we would -- we would feel safer
8 and more secure if the forensic psychologist that
9 made the recommendations to the courts gave us a
10 plan, the judge orders the plan, the parties agree
11 -- or the parties agree to the plan, then we work
12 on it. My -- I'm sorry.
13 HON. SONDRA MILLER: Of course, we hear about
14 all of the trauma and hostility and, uh,
15 intensification of the anger that goes on during
16 the process itself. Uh, so that the question
17 really is wouldn't it be helpful to have this kind
18 of approach directed to the parties before they
19 went through all of the aggravation of the
20 process.
21 ROBERT HAVLICEK: There's no question, your
22 Honor, that I do agree with that. I'm just
23 telling you that there's a very conservative view
24 that we need direction from the Court at this
25 point. Parent coordination, as practiced in other
127
1 Matrimonial Commission Hearing
2 states, does have the prejudgment aspect that
3 you're referring to, and I'm sure it's -- it's
4 fine. I see really no problem with it. But,
5 there's -- it's a conservative -- this is a very
6 new thing, and I think that the feeling of the
7 group -- of the approximately 20 or 25 individuals
8 that I'm working with, Judge Ross is -- is aware
9 that we're working on this -- uh, the feeling of
10 the group is that we should really not expand our
11 horizons beyond the security of -- of the
12 conservative position in trying to implement it.
13 As much as I believe, very, very firmly, that we
14 should try to make prejudgment intervention so
15 courts might want to do that in a way that doesn't
16 limit the -- the due process rights of the
17 litigants. And, your Honor, even in thinking
18 about that, in the jet plane in coming here I had
19 a little bit of an insight that I wonder, uh, when
20 -- when -- when you think about the legal concept
21 of due process, does that also imply the fact that
22 the parents, who are going through this stressful
23 process may not be able to fully appreciate their
24 options in the system, which may limit their
25 ability to really fully understand and appreciate
128
1 Matrimonial Commission Hearing
2 their due process rights. Which is an argument, I
3 would say, in favor of a calming down period and
4 in favor of intervention to enable the parties to
5 work helpfully with one another to try to calm
6 down and think about it. There's almost always a
7 solution. There's almost always a solution. But,
8 of course, the parties don't -- one or both
9 parties may not want to opt for that -- that
10 solution, wanting to win. I hope that that
11 explains it. I just would like to make a few
12 other remarks if I might, your Honor.
13 HON. SONDRA MILLER: Please go on.
14 ROBERT HAVLICEK: This issue of parent
15 coordination, case management, therapeutic
16 intervention for problematic visitation, things
17 I've written about that are on my website, if any
18 of you want to read about it, uh, are very
19 important issues. They offer real pos --
20 possibilities to help these families that are
21 going through the distress and turmoil to solve
22 their problems in -- in various different ways.
23 It has very strong implications for forensic
24 evaluation, something that I feel very, very
25 strongly about. I believe forensic evaluations
129
1 Matrimonial Commission Hearing
2 need to be improved. I believe that we can do a
3 better job, a much better job. One --
4 HON. SONDRA MILLER: How? How?
5 ROBERT HAVLICEK: Okay. First of all, I
6 believe that people who practice forensic
7 evaluations should be parent coordinators or at
8 least case managers or intervenors who know how to
9 work with families who are in the thick of it. So
10 if we don't have that gut level experience and
11 knowledge about how these people operate outside
12 of the forensic environment, we're probably not
13 going to do as good a job in drafting our reports
14 and putting our reports together. And, also,
15 we're not going to do as good a job in terms of
16 recommending specific interventions that might be
17 of assistance to the -- to the parents and the
18 children. So I -- I very strongly believe that
19 people who practice forensic psychology should
20 also have a lot of background in doing family
21 therapy and a lot of background in working with
22 couples who are going through divorce.
23 In addition, I believe very strongly that
24 forensic experts need peer review. I believe that
25 -- that -- that five years of experience doing
130
1 Matrimonial Commission Hearing
2 forensic reports is, to me, barely enough. I -- I
3 have been doing this for -- I don't even know how
4 many years, 20 years, 15 years, I don't know what
5 it's been, but my own feeling is that I'm still
6 learning. And one of the wonderful things about
7 this Parent Coordinators Association of New York,
8 that's forming now, is the fact that there is a
9 peer review process going on. We sit down, we
10 talk about our cases, then we ask for criticism.
11 Of course, that's happening in the context of
12 parent coordination, not forensics, but I think it
13 really should happen in both. And if we were
14 required to do peer review, to submit our reports
15 to other professionals who have more than five
16 years of experience, say, I think that would be --
17 enrich the process tremendously, in addition to
18 the other recommendation that I made.
19 Third one, I would say, is continuing
20 education. That I believe that it's -- the -- the
21 -- the responsibility of the forensic psychologist
22 has to shoulder is so important that unless we are
23 taking continuing education in domestic violence,
24 in substance abuse, in our own particular chosen
25 field, psychology, perhaps, that we're just not
131
1 Matrimonial Commission Hearing
2 going to be able to render the type of quality
3 reports that our clients and courts deserve.
4 HON. SONDRA MILLER: Is it your position that
5 the forensic should give an opinion to the Court
6 as to the ultimate issue in the case of the
7 child's custody?
8 ROBERT HAVLICEK: Your Honor, I've always
9 read the order. If the order says to me to
10 provide a recommendation for custody, I just
11 obediently follow the order. That is my thought
12 on it. Whatever the judge wants is what I'll do.
13 Probably it -- my own belief is that it's probably
14 best that we don't. That I believe that we,
15 psychologists, and -- and, uh, uh, social workers,
16 uh, and other forensic experts, are very good at
17 doing things like testing, interviewing, uh,
18 talking to other professionals, obtaining lots of
19 information, uh, that can be used by the various
20 justices to reach their decisions. In my
21 experience I feel that when I finish one of my
22 reports, which are, by the way, extremely lengthy,
23 I'm frequently criticized for making them too
24 long, which to me is a compliment, they're a
25 hundred pages, they're 200 pages easily in length,
132
1 Matrimonial Commission Hearing
2 uh, I feel very strongly that the children deserve
3 that the expert provide the best and
4 state-of-the-art information to the justice system
5 so that the judge can be as informed as possible.
6 I -- I don't know what else to say about that, but
7 I believe that we really have a -- an obligation
8 to improve ourselves, to constantly learn, submit
9 ourselves to peer review, take continuing
10 education, uh, and, uh, also get our hands
11 involved in treatment.
12 HON. SONDRA MILLER: Any questions from the
13 panel? Thank you very much.
14 ROBERT HAVLICEK: Thank you very much your
15 Honor. Thank you all.