Do's and Dont's for Therapeutic Visits(TVs)

[Mika1739]

The GAL in my case finally found a therapist to foster TVs that a judge ordered.  The person is a LCPC not a Psy. D or PH.D  My ex's attorney is already referring to the the counselor as Dr. 
Also, when I made my appointment the counsler told me that my ex missed her appointment without notice.  While this helps my case that my ex doesn't know how to be a parent like recognizing who important showing up is but also that she could inappropriately share my info too.  I have been in a lot of therapy in my life and one rule I have is I don't do therapy with people who are not doctors.  Every couples therapy I was in with my ex in past always ended up with the counselor taking one persons side and the therapy going nowhere and infact causing more damage.

  I feel like I can't win with facts and data, I have to appeal to the counslers emotions.  Any experience?

[DreamGirl]

The GAL in my case finally found a therapist to foster TVs that a judge ordered.  The person is a LCPC not a Psy. D or PH.D  My ex's attorney is already referring to the the counselor as Dr. 
Also, when I made my appointment the counsler told me that my ex missed her appointment without notice.  While this helps my case that my ex doesn't know how to be a parent like recognizing who important showing up is but also that she could inappropriately share my info too.  I have been in a lot of therapy in my life and one rule I have is I don't do therapy with people who are not doctors.  Every couples therapy I was in with my ex in past always ended up with the counselor taking one persons side and the therapy going nowhere and infact causing more damage.

  I feel like I can't win with facts and data, I have to appeal to the counslers emotions.  Any experience?

I understand being worried about credentials -- it's important.

Have your done any research of this LCPC?

I supported Therapeutic Visitation with my son and his dad on all levels -- my son's dad did not have the skills to follow through.

Sounds like your ex is going to struggle too.
 

[livednlearned]

I feel like I can't win with facts and data, I have to appeal to the counslers emotions.  Any experience?

Is the LCPC to oversee the therapeutic visit for your ex? Or for you?

Do you have to do therapy with this person? Or are they mainly there to facilitate a supportive visit between mom and kids?

[Mika1739]

The Order is short and says that her parenting time is hereby reserved until further order of court unless said parenting time can be arranged in a therapeutic setting.  I think the effect is to reserve her parenting time unless it can be done while in a theraputic setting so that the therapist can report to the GAL and he can report to the Judge.  The basis that serious allegations of mental health and substance abuse issues have been raised and since she did not show up that the Judge has a serious lack of information from her side about what is going on and now the judge will be requiring her to do TVs so that an object therapist can begin giving the Judge information about her personality and mental state while with the children.

  Right now I have learned you never know what could happen.  How can a counsler see past all of the masks that BPD wears, BPD manipulation can be very subtle and insidious.  BPDs attorney already sent my attorney email saying how the therapist told BPD(BPD already had her initial screening, I have mine tomorrow) that this is not in children's best intrest and children will think they are abandoned.  Her attorney kept calling the counsler a Dr.  Counslers are not qualified to handle very complex disorders as BPD.  Counslers are not able to diagnose or evaluate at the level of BPD.

[livednlearned]

Counslers are not qualified to handle very complex disorders as BPD.  Counslers are not able to diagnose or evaluate at the level of BPD.

I see. You see this as an opportunity for a third-party professional to spot the mom's inability to effectively parent, due to BPD. You would like this person to have the training to detect that mom has BPD.

My ex was evaluated by a psychologist (phd) and she did not diagnose him -- I learned here that there is an objective forensic psychiatric test called the MMPI-2 used to evaluate personality disorders (among other things). It has to be administered by someone trained in how to use it properly, so the evaluation done on my ex never concluded in a diagnosis, even though the court, the parenting coordinator, both lawyers, and probably anyone sitting in court could tell something was very wrong with my ex. The psychiatric evaluation was considered "forensic," and it was conducted by a phd, entered into court, and read by the judge, and it was very influential, except it did not conclude in a diagnosis.

The good thing about your situation is that her behavior is already alerting the court that something is seriously wrong with her. Normal parents show up in court to make their best possible impression, they don't avoid following through on basic standards of conduct. She's not acting like a normal parent.

Is it too late to file a motion to have a psychiatric evaluation done of the mother? If so, you might be able to request (specifically) the MMPI-2, and chose three forensic psychiatrists to conduct it, letting her or her attorney pick the one they want from your list, plus a deadline for getting it done and consequences for non-compliance (like you get to choose the person if she does not choose them in a timely way, or that no visits will occur without a professional of your choosing).

[Mika1739]

livednlearned thank you for the excellent info. I have a different diagnosis of my own but properly treated and high functioning since before this case but I worry it could become that everyone including the children gets sucked into the mental diagnosis finger pointing.  As a gene pool in our family it's common for us to have family therapists and psychiatrists and diagnosis with Psychiatrists and medicine regimens, everyone is in some sort of therapy and its a great thing actually because we are dealing with our issues and living better lives inspite of them!  We are all pretty healthy (except her) and nobody feels guilty because their genetically predisposed to something.  Were not even mad at her, we see this as an opportunity to address her issues with the right doctors and get better so kids can get mom back.  The reality is BPD takes years of effort, there is not a magic pill and were not even close to getting past denial with her.  The best thing we can do is keep her in this legal process so the neutral parties continue to see, like you said, that she is not normal and it doesn't take long to see that.   Her attorney mentioned a 604 I think its what her attorney called it, something about all the mental health records being subpoena available to the court.    Having lived through my own hell no court is gonna make her better, only she can say enough and ask for help.  BPD recovery will take years of DBT and the most important ingredient, willingness.  The court is unqualified to address her mental issues but it can help document and expose them.  The ace up my sleeve is I have been working with a Dr. who happens to be one of the formost experts in the U.S. on BPD especially in the impact it has on children of the BPD.  I need BPD to breakdown and say okay" help me" and then bring the doctor in.

Thank you so much for the tip on MMPI-2

[livednlearned]

You make a great point! That it is not necessarily the diagnosis or the fact that someone has one -- it's the impact on the kids. And in court, that means having 1) the dx; and 2) the expert witness to testify about the impact on the kids. Probably add to that 3) documented history and pattern of behavior.

You sound like you are on your toes and paying attention to the things that can swing a case.

Third-party professionals can influence our cases, so caring about the credentials (and the reputation) of those people can really matter.

[Mika1739]

Livednlearned, my attorney said this about MMPI-2

This test is done as part of a custody evaluation, if it comes to that.  The MMPI is a personality based test that gauges a persons’ abilities and limitations.[/i]

My therapist said this.

The MMPI-2 is very well-known, respected and reliable.

These are such vague answers.

I have been doing my internet nerd research and the MMPI-2 is fascinating but still so much to wrap my head around.  You said it is helpful to identify personality disorders but havent seen much about that, I was wondering if you could say anything else about your experience?

Thanks again

[livednlearned]

I know a few members here reported having used it in their custody cases, to useful effect. It was among one of three things that my ex was court-ordered to do -- MMPI-2, anger management, and substance abuse treatment. Fulfilling all three was a condition of reinstating visitation after ex violated multiple court orders.

I guess the stress of those court-ordered expectations was too much for ex, and he instead chose to walk away from any relationship with our son, one of those good/bad things that S15 is still working through.

So I am an anomaly in the sense that the MMPI worked in my case without ever having to actually use it.    My gut tells me he felt some panic about the test, though having a PD, I think it was also excruciating for him to have the judge dictate anything that was perceived as punitive, or suggestive that ex had something wrong with him.

It might be a good idea to ask your attorney if your case warrants the MMPI-2 -- there are many ways to reach your goals, and those strategies/tactics probably work best when paired with the particular skill set of your lawyer, the known biases of the judge involved in your case, and how much money you want to spend.

MMPI-2 can be a couple thousand dollars, if I remember correctly. So not cheap. And then you need an expert to testify about the results. If your ex is sub-clinical BPD, you may get something vague from the test, and would still need a documented pattern of behavior. It is also possible to "present falsely," which means the person taking the test exhibits a pattern of answering the questions falsely. Meaning, lying.

The only reason I wanted the MMPI-2 in my case was to shine as much light on what at that point was clearly disordered behavior, both to me and to the court. Ex was giving us both the middle finger and it was reasonable, based on what was going on in our case, for me to ask for the MMPI-2. I used it strategically -- it was my way of signaling to the court that I could propose a reasonable solution that fit the problem behaviors. It had the added benefit of giving me a potential diagnosis for the behavior so that a T could discuss openly with my son, who was utterly and thoroughly confused by his dad's behavior.

Hope that helps.

[Mika1739]

Livednlearned, I read some scholarly studies that claimed the Personality Inventory Assessment (PIA) was statisticly speaking, more accurate for assessing BPD than MMPI-2.  Not to say the MMPI-2 is clearly one of the most important psychiatric inventions of the 20th century.  Was PIA ever mentioned?

Also you have me thinking, If I go the mile and offer I will pay for something like this I could negotiate a trade.  Meaning if I get the diagnosis then I know the treatment, she has done so many IOPs and it does nothing and patterns persist and worsen.  It sounds like what was missing in your case was the Psychiatrist who could diagnose immediately upon results and in  accordance with the Court allowing their testimony as fact.  Then the Court with its legal power could enforce treatment compliance.  Am I being nieve here?

PS thank you again.

[livednlearned]

I haven't heard of PIA before.

The court did order treatment in my case based on three motions we entered (MMPI-2, substance abuse treatment, and anger management), although not for BPD per se.

By that point I had given up any hope or need for my ex to get treatment. The motions were presented as solutions to problems, and since people with BPD tend to show up in court with no solutions, the court went with what I proposed.

Plus, the motions/solutions were reasonable in light of the escalating and bad behavior that was easy to document (emails, texts, and ex's own testimony in which he admitted to his behaviors). My son is not emotionally resilient and it was clear that his dad was in no shape to parent him, so ending visitation and getting custody was more important than hoping for treatment. The MMPI-2 piece was a bit of theater, to be honest. It was clear to everyone in the court room that there was something wrong with ex, so calling for it was a reasonable request.

I don't believe court-ordered therapy or treatment could be successful -- it would be perceived as too controlling by a BPD sufferer, in my opinion.