Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Attornys Unfair treatment of substance users and alcoholics

I understand that alcoholics and people dependent on substances are actually the new niggers (black people do not have a monopoly on the word) of our society. They are stigmatized, discriminated against in work and other social and economic activities (since perhaps only a few decades ago).
There is like a new McCarthy Era.  Active alcoholics and dependent persons do not have many
allies. Perhaps a counselor here and there, the National Harm Reduction Coalition and the Drug Policy Alliance. If there more they are hard to find.  The media keep a silent code when treatment facilities and/or agencies are criticized.

When they make an accusation of abuse the authorities either ignore them, so superficial investigations or worse yet decide that the problem person was the victim, not the abuser. Some treatment programs have been extremely abusive to those persons who resit their religious indoctrination (see Don't Call it Treatment).

My impression is that professionals specially attorneys have an outright fear or apathy of psychological malpractice.  Their views maybe because of the fuzzy, vague and ambivalence understanding of popular psychology.  Ignoring and finding more difficult to understand psychology as a science or rather the lack of it in treatment.

"Experts" are slippery and hard to pin down (unless one is a clever attorney).  The "experts", sound confident about what they say. And confidence, whether the information is accurate or inaccurate does not matter, is a highly desirable characteristic in our society and courts. They are confident because most attorneys don't have the foggiest of ideas of how to breakdown most of the psychological experts claims.  The "experts" always seem to have another example the will clear any inconsistency in their testimonies.  Psychological "experts" seem to be easier to defend than to go against them.  Psychology does not have the physicality that exist in the other fields like engineering, or even in medical science (where psychology and substance use disorder treatment derived from, usually nothing).

If you are an attorney who have gone against a psycholgist who have testify against your client, I can
say with high degree of confidence that you have been bamboozled.  They have been doing it to the justice sytem for quite a long time.

I suggest the following readings for your best interest and those of your clients.




One of the best documents written about psycholgist testifying was done by Jay Ziskin both a research and clinical psychology and attorney with the 3 Volumes. This unique book documents the deficiencies of psychiatric and psychological evidence, and demonstrates how to cross-examine and challenge the expertise of psychiatrists and psychologists. The sixth edition of this classic will be contained in one volume for the first time, and is a professional 'must have' for attorneys. This highly effective guide is designed to help attorneys differentiate expert testimony that is scientifically well-established from authoritative pronouncements that are mainly speculative.

Ziskin, Jay; Faust, David (2012)Coping with Psychiatric and Psychological Testimony, Oxford Universtiy Press, New York


Blog Medical Whisle Blower
http://medicalwhistleblower.blogspot.com/2007/04/history-of-american-society-of.html


Hagen, Margaret A (1997)Whores of the Courst; The Fraud of Psychiatry Testimoney and the Rap of American Justice Regan Books, New York.

Skeen, Jennifer L ( ) Psychological Science in the Courtroom: Consensus and Controversy

Ewing, Charles Patrick () Mind on Trial: Great Cases in Law and Psychology

There are a number of articles written in books that I will add at a later time.