Armchair Diagnosing; Trauma or Disorder- What will become of the victims of wrongful diagnosis and their lost children?
A tense 11 week wait for a pivotal landmark judgement from the President of the Family Court ended today. Sir Andrew McFarlane handed down in private yesterday, today releasing publicly, his reasoning behind the appeal refusal and the courts quasi permission to allow unregulated people to act as expert psychologists. The heated debate and expensive, long High Court case was brought in response to the refusal by a lower judge to consider facts found of domestic abuse by a previous court, later rendered insignificant by a so-called expert psychologist, to now warrant transferring the children to live with the found abuser. The expert in question is Melanie Gill, in todays judgement referred to mysteriously as Ms A. She makes life-changing and damaging diagnosis of varying gravity exclusively in Family Court cases under the guise of conducting expert psychological assessments. Todays published judgement decided to anonymise her name despite The Guardian previously winning their case to name her and the hearings being open to the public and Miss Gill attending. Nationally reported pictures and articles on Miss Gills spurious lack of qualifications or regulation were published and detailed along with why the case and her identity was of national public interest. There was no known court order to recant that decision to allow her to be named made clear in todays publication.
Diagnosing disorders is increasingly contested as a helpful or useful way of treating problems, due primarily to the lack of understanding by satellite professionals in family cases. Problematically social workers, local authorities, CAFCASS and even judges have no basic understanding or training of who can and who can’t diagnose, by what methods and what the results actually mean- let alone why trauma is symptomatic of experiences. The experiences are what should matter on a factual basis when we consider any domestic abuse. Oppression in any form and for any length of time is the sole responsibility of the oppressor, and not the oppressed. When considering domestic abuse there is international outcry and rightly so, that we should not be diagnosing the victims as suffering from disorders due to the trauma they have been subjected to. These disorder labels shift all focus onto the mental health and capability of the victims and firmly away from the person responsible. This is often called Parental Alienation.
“I made reference to this guidance in an address given in Jersey on 8 October 2021:
“One specific problem which is said to arise in cases of domestic abuse is the not infrequent counter assertion that the person making allegations of abuse is themselves causing harm to the child by ‘parental alienation’. This is a complex and sensitive issue, and in the short time available in this address I seek to make one and one point only about it. Where the issue of parental alienation is raised and it is suggested to the court that an expert should be instructed, the court must be careful only to authorise such instruction where the individual expert has relevant expertise.
In this regard I draw attention to the fact that I am about to issue a General
Memorandum on the topic of the instruction of experts. Within that I stress that an ‘expert must demonstrate to the court that he or she has the relevant knowledge and experience to give either opinion evidence, or factual evidence which is not based exclusively on personal observation or sensation’.”
Andrew Bagchi KC made the explicit statement on behalf of Miss Gill in previous open court, that, “Miss Gill does not make clinical diagnosis, she makes observational diagnosis”.
This seems at direct odds to the Presidents own judgement today that exclusively observational diagnosis should not be permitted.
Parental Alienation experts successfully argue that the mental disorders of the victim are the only reason and context a court should be concerned by when assessing child welfare and that domestic abuse in and of itself is not a greater or even concerning risk in terms of good or successful parenting- only the disorders victims are subsequently diagnosed with having by such experts. The deflection is one of sinister comprehension for most victims of domestic abuse.
The Family Courts are drawing a dangerous distinction between unevidenced “disorders” and justified domestic abuse trauma, the former being considered significant and the latter becoming entirely insignificant. However, who gets to make this distinction is of even greater concern and went to the heart of this landmark case. Who can diagnose someone as having any personality disorders? Or children with stockholm syndrome? Abuse perpetrators with PTSD, truthful children with false memory syndrome, maritally traumatised adults with childhood attachment disorders, psychopathologies so contested they sound Freudian? Or personality disorder traits, dismiss alleged childhood trauma, exploit and victimise adverse childhood experiences, imply without evidence neglect, opine future risk as absolute fact, dismiss sexual abuse, dismiss sexual assaults, mine through legitimate periods of medical history like a parent dying, to then diagnose a life-altering mood disorders? Any manner of anxiety disorders but root the cause in the victims history and not attach it to the domestic abuse they suffered? Anti-social disorders, narcissistic disorders, post-natal psychosis?? – Miss Gill has even made a post natal psychosis- not depression, but psychosis diagnosis on a person she has never met or spoken with, had no medical history on and felt confident that she had sufficient third hand (not medical or professional) information to provide the court with a full diagnosis. The list of entirely unsubstantiated psychiatric and clinical diagnosis by this expert is so extensive it beggars public belief as to what Miss Gill claims she can, does and will diagnose. Anything at all.
Her most boastful and incredulous diagnosis is that Miss Gill is able to perform a truth veracity test, assess a victims truth with 100% accuracy. So much so that Miss Gill has reported to a court that a Fact Finding Hearing, used to trial domestic abuse allegations, as simply not necessary in the slightest. Miss Gill says she alone can assess if the victims are telling the truth or the alleged perpetrators.
Miss Gill has gotten this wrong. Exceedingly wrong. She is not a judge. She is not an officer of the court. She is not a lie detector. And she is consistently persuaded that all men tell the truth and all women and children lie. I can confirm with 100% certainty Miss Gill has wrongly told a court the victim had not been sexually assaulted, was not repeatedly raped, was not beaten, was not abused and was not highly and extremely traumatised by the all control and abuse from the husband. This was despite the mountain of physical evidence, police evidence, medical evidence, witnesses, injuries, photographs and more. She was 100% wrong. The courts believed Miss Gill. That victim never ever saw her children ever again. The violent abusive father took full custody.
But how?
By observational opinion and the use of a raft of applied (self-reported) psychological tests, predominantly the Dynamic Maturation Model, the Adult Attachment Interview and Schema assessment. She also claims to use composite testing of Meaning of The Child assessment, International Personality Disorder Questionnaire, Youngs Parenting Inventory, Schema Mode Inventory, Care Index, School Aged Assessment, Transition to Adult Attachment Inventory, Trauma Symptom checklist for younger children, YSQ-L3, NEO-PR, IPDE — the list goes on and on. Be aware, when these results do not corrolate with her opinion or pre-conceived outcomes, she simply rejects the tests in favour of ‘Structured Professional Judgement’, in simple terms- her good old fashioned unregulated opinion.
Whether or not these tests should be conducted by qualified and regulated people is the ultimate issue of concern. The Association of Clinical Psychologists say unqualified people that are unregulated cannot have the skill or knowledge to conduct psychological assessment, if this were not the case even your Milkman could call himself a specialist expert psychological assessor!
‘In terms of Psychologists, only a practitioner psychologist (currently registered with HCPC [‘Health and Care Professions Council’]) such as a Clinical Psychologist can give a diagnosis or formulation or make recommendations about therapeutic interventions. Some, but not all practitioner (regulated) psychologists, can make recommendations about capacity.
ACP-UK is aware of several cases in which “psychological experts” who are not HCPC registered have suggested inappropriate diagnoses and made
recommendations for children to be removed from their mothers based on these diagnoses. ACP-UK wishes to support those instructing experts for the courts to understand the importance of using HCPC registered practitioner psychologists and is available for consultation on such matters. More broadly, to protect the public from harm, the ACP-UK is campaigning for legislation to protect the term “psychologist” and restrict this to use by practitioner psychologists regulated by the HCPC.’
Todays judgement sets out a clear threshold that those administering such tests should be regulated to do so; there is certain confusion enveloped into the at-times contradicting judgement that registration with a regulating body, The HCPC, would provide the court clear and definitive understanding as to whether or not a person calling themselves a psychologists could assess someone and make recommendations and diagnosis based on their exclusively observational opinion, or not.
Should, would and could are not words that work favourably in legislation. The law must be clear, unambiguous, definitive and consistent. Suggestions, guidance and recommendations have no place when deciding the outcome of the rest of people’s lives. We do not permit such vague ambiguities in criminal law, they must not be permitted in family law either. Discretion afforded to family judges as to who they decide can and can’t diagnose people is simply wrong. It is a clear cut answer. If a person does not hold the level of required training and accredited qualifications to be regulated by the accepted professional body, then that person has not met the threshold of standard competence and expertise. We do not permit unregulated doctors or pilots- that would be unsafe.
Permitting unregulated psychological experts into court, to opine on matters that are of a regulated profession is clear danger to public protection on every level and undermines the family justice system.
Access to such various and sometimes obscure or unrecognised testing methods should be reserved only to regulated individuals was the summary of the ACP’s submission. This was not something the President was willing to uphold as legislatively possible at this time, he indicated a need for this to be investigated as an issue for deeper consideration and a possible change required to protect the public at parliamentary level.
The Presidents current holding position fails to address the concern and damage that has already been done by Miss Gill conducting such assessments and the use of those findings being accepted at face value by naive judges and social workers.
Diagnosing victims of domestic abuse with personality disorders that are used to explain and justify their abuse – as being architects of their own demise, completely negates and removes the concept of trauma-informed practice. We accept that abuse causes trauma, and symptoms that are exceedingly similar to presentation of many personality and mood disorders. Distinguishing between the two should be the difficult job that expert witnesses are appointed for by the courts, their need for the highest level of training and standards an immovable requirement.
Whilst Miss Gill goes to great lengths to diminish domestic abuse and reverse the role of victim and offender, the unsuspecting public face grave danger. Trauma from domestic violence does not cause poor parenting. Domestic abusers cause trauma.
The distinction required could not be more important when children’s lives are at stake. Instead, persecuting the traumatised victims has become the bread and butter of Miss Gill’s self-employed practice for her whole career according to her ‘voluble’ and ‘narrative’ CV. The results are catastrophic for children and victims of domestic abuse being the only ones to suffer by unregulated psychologists who lack training and recognised qualifications to apply trauma-informed practice to assessment models. (I’d love to discuss how the additional layer of women on the spectrum further obscures presentation and assessment, but that is for another article…)
Trauma causes a wide array of problems and painful issues for victims, but sudden onset and ‘dormant’ personality disorders with latent or unseen psychopathologies are both exceedingly rare according to the World Health Organisation and not something that can be diagnosed without great skill and specific historic markers in ones medical history- only by a psychiatrist or senior regulated psychologist. Miss Gill has publicly claimed that unseen personality disorders in one parent lay entirely silent and dormant until the very moment of separation. Legitimate experts and many victims might actually proffer a more acceptable theory that if there is a sudden change in ‘personality’, presentation or behaviour, that it has been triggered by a recent traumatic event or ongoing abuse— it is domestic abuse. It is not, as Miss Gill guesses, exploits and wrongly uses, a hidden or latent childhood trauma or childhood abuse or childhood neglect in the victim. This is fanciful and fictitious. History of violence and injury, non-fatal strangulation, rape, assault, battery, psychological trauma, financial abuse, coercive and controlling behaviour, all cause (not irreversible) traumatic changes to victims presentation, behaviour and mental health.
She elevates the perpetrators of the domestic abuse to saint-like status, accepting fully their self-reported versions of events, few are based on any evidence, and has standard form for actually explaining that even if the perpetrators appeared to be the initially at fault as who attacked or assaulted the mothers, that is was the mothers personality disorders that caused that attack and she didn’t suffer, only her attacker suffered.
Some reports even show she has suggested PTSD diagnosis for fathers who have been evidenced, arrested and found to have committed domestic violence. Miss Gill seems to feel extremely sorry for them being “pushed” to such lengths that he was “forced” to by his unstable partner and he must be applauded for his gallant efforts of trying to cope with such a mad woman in his house.
Grabbing your wife by the throat, raping her, beating her, choking her, are not responses to her having a personality disorder. Ever. The Family Courts seem to strongly disagree.
The ‘observational’ diagnosis Miss Gill makes have no place in a forensic setting that isn’t domestic violence trauma informed, underpinned by accredited qualifications in relevant training, overseen by regulated professional standards of practice, accountable to ethical codes and rooted in recognised theory and science. This is simply a dark, sadistic drive to separate mothers from their children and give them to abusers.
