Legal Consultation including Custody Evaluations
Psychologists are sometimes needed to help with legal proceedings, because judges need input from experts in psychological and family matters. Custody evaluations commonly use psychologists to provide information about the best interests of the child in a divorce.

Generally, both parents are evaluated with an interview and psychological testing, the children are interviewed with each parent and by themselves, and sometimes a home study is done. We have prepared guidelines to help parents and attorneys understand the role of the psychologist in providing information to the court in these cases, so feel free to call and ask for a copy of the guidelines. Also, see the Divorce section above for more information about services for families dealing with divorce.

Information for attorneys
I have been in practice in Bloomington for over thirty years and know most of the local judges. I do a lot of marriage and individual counseling as well as custody evaluations and am a registered domestic mediator and parent coordinator. I also do evaluation and counseling of anger management problems and alcohol and drug abuse problems, as well as pain management.

I also do criminal defense and personal injury work. On the criminal side, I do evaluations for competency to stand trial, sanity at the time of an offense, and pre-sentence evaluations and defense mitigation. With personal injury work, I provide evaluations and treatment for selected personal injury cases or worker’s comp where psychological issues may be involved, especially post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, or chronic pain from motor vehicle accidents, and other types of injuries.

I have been qualified as an expert witness in Bartholomew, Lawrence, Monroe, Morgan, Greene, Vigo, and Owen counties. If it would be helpful to review my resume, please let me know.

Psychological Testing
I administer the following psychological tests when they may be needed in a variety of legal and work related situations in addition to the above legal issues.

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory - 2nd Edition (the MMPI-2), the most widely used general personality test. It measures anxiety, depression, psychosis, anti-social personality, impulsivity, mood disorders, sociability, and other personality traits, and includes scales detecting faking.

The Millon Clinical Multi-Axial Inventory - 3rd Edition (the MCMI-3), similar to the MMPI-2 but focuses on enduring personality traits and subtle behavior patterns in relationships sometimes not picked up by the MMPI-2 which tends to measure more global psychological problems.

The Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory - 3rd Edition (the SASSI-3), a screening instrument for chemical dependency and alcoholism that has been shown to be 94% accurate in identifying individuals with chemical dependency (addiction).

The Parent-Child Relationship Inventory (PCRI), an instrument describing various aspects of parent-child relationships such as acceptance, limit-setting, involvement, communication, and satisfaction with parenting. It is helpful in custody evaluations, and for coaching parents when needed.

The State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory - 2nd Edition (the STAXI-2), an instrument describing various aspects of anger management, including anger release, suppression, control, and other variables. It is helpful in comparing an individual to established norms and providing direction for counseling.

Performance Psychology
Whether in school, sports, music, business, or any creative field, blocks in performance can hold creative people back from reaching their potential. Procrastination, performance anxiety, writer’s block, test anxiety are all concepts to describe times when we don’t perform up to our abilities. Modern psychological research has demonstrated the encouraging fact that these problems can almost always be overcome. Sometimes a shift in a mental set can alleviate the problem almost immediately, sometimes an incremental approach is needed to deal with a block. In one or two sessions, you can find out which approach is most likely to work for you.