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WELCOME

Welcome to the Custody Newsletter. Our tone is informal; we WANT contributions based on your clinical experiences, as well as more formal presentations.

Second, we solicit input from members of all professions. This is why it is not mandatory that any specific References format be followed e.g., the bibliographic notation system of the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, etc.

In general, we favor brief articles, contributions ranging from one-half of a typewritten page to about eight typewritten pages.

Issue Number 7 of the Custody Newsletter rounds out and completes, for the time being, CN’s coverage of the investigation of allegations of sexual abuse. Issue No. 5 featured a piece by John Call, Ph.D., J.D., which surveyed the entire field. Issue No. 6 focused on the interview as an investigative tool be means of an in-depth review of Adam Noah Hoorwitz’s important book, The Clinical Detective.

The current issue returns us to the future-- which in my mind means the continuing development of psychological tests as data-based aids to assist investigations in this critical area.

Having now taken part in literally hundreds of such investigations, I and convinced that the interview is relatively worthless with very young children, children 3 to 4 years of age or less. Not only are such children hampered in their ability to tell a consistent story by their levels of cognitive development, etc., but are buffeted by intense family and loyalty conflicts. Even in cases where it is fairly clear that abuse is, or has, taken place, very young children will not even necessarily comprehend that this is so.

As custody evaluators we have a special problem, knowing that false allegations run high among persons who are otherwise battling each other.

Carl F. Hoppe, Ph.D., an example of the best of what is meant by the term "clinician-researcher," approaches the problem via a "Pedophilic Index."

A SEVEN YEAR RETROSPECTIVE OF THE PEDOPHILIC INDEX

When a felon’s not engaged in his employment (his employment) or maturing his felonious little plans (little plans), his capacity for innocent enjoyment (cent enjoyment) is just as great as any honest man’s (Gilbert & Sullivan, 1879).

Pedophilia occurs in people who look normal as well as those who are obviously ill in other ways. The problem is how to determine the pedophile from the non pedophile. Testing for the behavioral trait of child sexual abuse is notoriously difficult, yet psychological testing has continued to be viewed by much of the legal profession as a promising method for learning about whether an accused individual has the potential to harm a child by sexual abuse. Psychological tests are preferable to other means such as the polygraph (Nicholson and Bulkley, 1988).

I say "potential" because we cannot assess whether a suspect did or did not commit abuse. We can assess whether the suspect’s personality is consistent with the allegations made about him or her. Thus, testing may not be of much help where the criterion for judgement is evidence beyond the shadow of a doubt as it is in criminal matters, but it can be informative where the preponderance of the evidence informs decisions as it does in custody and visitation recommendations (Hoppe, 1991).

A basic question in developing a test profile of the pedophilic individual is the issue of whether pedophilic behavior is situational or determined by specific personality dynamics. In 1985 Hoppe and Chase claimed there are personality factors which prevent most adults from sexually molesting their own or other people's children. In the majority of adults these factors are sufficiently strong to safe-guard children in virtually all conditions. Conversely there are factors associated with some adults who misuse children for their own sexual gratification.

In attempting to differentiate between individuals who have falsely been accused of pedophilia in the context of a custody/-visitation conflict and individuals who have accurately been accused of pedophilia but deny it, I have identified nine personality attributes which can be discerned in personality testing, which are characteristics of regressed intrafamilial pedophiles. This is the type of sexual child abuser most likely to occur within the custody visitation population, but other kinds of child abusers may share these attributes.

There were nine concepts used in the Chase and Hoppe Pedophilic Index (Hoppe & Chase, 1985). These concepts were derived from many sources including testing several convicted but not incarcerated sexual child abusers and comparing their profiles to hundreds of profiles gathered in otherwise similar circumstances; from concepts spelled out by Bell and Hall (1971) in their book, The Personality of A Child Molester (because the sexual child abusers had not (yet) been incarcerated, the profiles were not contaminated by the shame of having been convicted or the side effects of being toughened by the harsh jail environment greeting those who have been convicted of sex crimes against children); well over a thousand custody cases since 1975. Thus, the point of view represents an amalgam of numerical scores from tests, clinical feel, and critical incidents from interview and life histories of the hundreds of subjects seen.

Bell and Hall did an interesting analysis of historic data, interview impressions, psychological tests, and a record of many dreams of "Norman," a 37-year-old Caucasian who had been convicted of child molestation and hospitalized. The 1971 study of Norman provides the beginning ideas of the pedophilic index. Details of the methodology of the dream analysis of "Norman" are reported in articles by Hall and Van de Castle (Hall & Van de Castle; Van de Castle, 1969; Hall, 1969). Confirming evidence of the interferences about Norman’s personality gleaned from dream analysis was sought from interviews, family history, and psychological tests, including the Rorschach, TAT, the Rotter Incomplete Sentences Blank, the MMPI, the Wechsler IQ Scales. This article assumes the reader has a basic familiarity with these kinds of psychological instruments, but brief explanations of scores will be given. Use of these kinds of tests in custody evaluations has been discussed previously (Hoppe, 1991).

Our (1985) list of pedophilic indicators started with Bell and Hall’s nine most important elements, and for this reason we proposed a nine-point scale. We felt that the presence of just two indicators would b sufficient to raise the question of pedophilia with the probability increasing with three or more indicators. Since the first presentation I have tended to think along these various dimensions without trying to derive a numerical score of from zero to nine because all factors are not equally important, nor is the degree of importance of any one element ewual across all cases. A numerical statetment of the presence of n factors does not take into account the difference between an egocentricity ratio of 0.60 and 1.09, for example (The Egocentricity Ratio is derived from the Rorschach and is sometimes interpreted as the individual’s tendency to see him/herself reflected in vague stimuli more objectively. The normal range is between .28 ad .50 (Exner, 1985), but the custody and visitation population seen in my office it has average 0.43 plus or minus 16.) Also I have been discouraged to have seen colleagues apply the indicators too literally and score an indicator too quickly.

Bell and Hall isolated the following aspects which seemed to characterize the personality of the child molester whom they intensively studied: Polymorphously perverse disposition; Dependency; Identification with children, Confusion of gender; Failures of control; Preoccupation with body*; Feminine identification*; (in a male)*; Fetal identification*; Externalized superego (asterisk indicates I combined this characteristics with a preceding characteristic). According to Bell and Hall these factors comprise an infantile personality.

In identifying the dimensions upon which we focus our attention, three of Bell and Hall’s elements were combined with other elements and three factors added to the resulting list of six attributes from Bell and Hall so that nine indicators or areas of focus were retained. The precise numbering is arbitrary if the absolute number of indicators is not used as some kind of summary, but numbering serves an heuristic purpose. The personality attributes I assess are:

1. polymorphously perverse disposition.
2. unresolved dependency
3. identification with children
4. confusion of gender
5. failures of impulse control
6. failures of emotional control
7. egocentricity and narcissism
8. specific MMPI elevations
9. extreme guardedness in the context of evaluation of this allegation.

Many of these personality characteristics can be recognized as content categories in Rorschach responses which were described by Roy Schafer in the 1954 book Psychoanalytic Interpretation of the Rorschach, in which he compares certain Rorschach responses to dream elements. Some characteristics such as phantasies of loss of impulse control or gender confusion can also be elicited by the TAT. Dependency is sometimes reflected on the MMPI or the Million.

(1) What is meant by polymorphously perverse disposition?

Bell and Hall use this term in a sense which indicates interest in many sexual object choices and many kinds of sexual acts involving all possible erogenous zones. This is the sense in which we use the term. We hypothesized that the perception of a variety of developmental erogenous zones comprises an infantile orientation to sexuality. On the Rorschach, polymorphous preoccupation shows up by the inappropriate perception of genitalia, buttocks, reproductive organs or breasts. In other words, the individual inaccurately sees, according to Exner’s (1974, 1985) accuracy tables, sexual organs or erogenous zones and sees erogenous zone from more than one level of development.

This content category is also present when there are occasions of anal preoccupation such as anal perspective, which is one of Wheeler’s signs (1949) of homosexual concerns. One individual recently described Card IX as a woman with her legs spread and a man’s thumb reaching up into her vagina and pushing away fecal matter and mucus to get at her insides. This combines genital and anal perceptions in an inaccurate combination.

"Preoccupation with the body" refers specifically to undue preoccupation with the sexual and internal organs, and preoccupation with the torso, which is the location of these organs. This has been considered to be a subcategory of polymorphous preoccupation. The actual number of anatomical references in Norman’s dreams, in total, was not much different from the general adult population. However, the emphasis on torso and sex organs seemed excessive. Other body images of a sexualized and bizarre nature were frequently reported. Norman dreamt of a woman with a gun protruding between her legs. He was also preoccupied with holes in buildings, which seemed to be metaphorical representations of bodies. This kind of preoccupation shows up on Rorschach content. We have lumped this category in with polymorphous predisposition in our own work.

(2) Unresolved dependency also is observable on psychological protocols. On the Rorschach this can show up as preoccupation with breasts or oral activities as well as in the Rorschach score summary (structural summary) concerning the uses of texture. Card X is sometimes seen as two (pink) \D9] figures sucking or blowing on blue \D6] objects, such as pipes or horns or breasts (location numbers refer to Exner’s 1974 chart). The inner rate details to Card I are sometimes perceived as human breasts or nipples. There is dependent orientation according to Schafer’s content categories. Frank dependency can also be scored from Loevinger’s (1970) scoring criteria for the Incomplete Sentences Blank. Stories of the TAT can indicate dependent characteristics, such as needing mother’s direction or projecting stories of figures who are helpless. An excess of textural determinants, i.e., three or more, suggest a preoccupation with seeking developmentally primitive, i.e., developmentally early, contact comfort. In combination with other themes this can indicate the kind of dependent yearnings for closeness that leads adults to narcissistically abuse children. The MMPI-2 MacAndrews Alcoholism Scale may be medium or high. Here it is useful to recall once again that these descriptions apply to examinations done in the context of a courtroom procedure, so that the inflation of test scores due to a "cry for help" is unlikely and inappropriate.

(3) By identification with children is meant that the adult is not only preoccupied with children or child-like figures, but he also sees himself psychologically as a child amongst adults. The child sexual abuser may view himself in children’s terms and from a child’s perspective. He is more relaxed in the presence of children than in the presence of adults, and shares with children a common frame of mind. Bell and Hall reported that Norman seemed to view adult woman as remote, cold and destructive beings, who could not be approached directly. He also feared contacts with males. He seemed to idealize children. He said, "The child has no false self; the adult does." In my office an admitted extra-familial pedophile, who had molested a twelve year old baby sitter, succinctly expressed this idea to me as he protested that his sexual activity with the girl was "just a boy-girl thing." He failed to see that he was an adult three times the age of the child! While this feature is frequently pare of the sexually abusing person, it should be remembered that the feature of seeing adults as colder and less approachable than children is sometimes seen among schizoid individuals who may prefer the companionship of children but who do no violate the child’s physical boundaries.

"Identification with children" seems to be an essential element of pedophilia. Another individual who admitted to pedophilia activity told of watching from a tree while a young boy bared his erect penis ro another male playmate in preadolescent sex play. The adult pedophile called down to the boys and offered to play with them too, as if he were just like them.

Roy Schafer (1954) describes Rorschach responses which typify this category. He describes this orientation as a rejecting attitude toward adult, nurturing, parental roles. He includes regressive preoccupation with childhood imagery, including witches, dragons, elves, ogres, Alice in Wonderland, Snow White, children bundled up, etc. In or work it has been frequently observed that pedophilic individuals are preoccupied with cartoon characters. The appearance of more than one cartoon character on a Rorschach record is sufficient to raise a question of preoccupation with childlike imagery. Fetal imagery or preoccupation with embryos is also part of this category.

The phantasy of "fetal identification" can also be seen in projective material. Life begins in an enclosure, and the human remains in an enclosure for the first nine months. In the 1985 paper we hypothesized that projective material of suspected child abuser might contain fantasies of being in a womb-like enclosure. For purposes of thinking about the test indicators of pedophilic characteristics I have included this category with the category of "Identification with Children." However, again this content area has proven to be insufficiently represented in the testing sample. The perception of adult figures in child-like settings and postures, however, has seemed to be much more frequently observed.

(4) Confusion of gender means that the adult attributes male characteristics to the female and vice versa. Phantasies of figure having both breasts and penis or of the gender of a figure as being reversible are often seen in projective testing. In TAT stories a woman has a moustache (prone figure, card 8 BM). In another (card 3) a woman is disguised as a man. The human figures on the Rorschach, especially card III, are spontaneously seen to have both a breast and a penis. Sometimes when a detail is seen as having a gendered quality, the sexual attribute of a given detail is seen as having the opposite gender from what is expected. There also may be perceptions of a man wearing feminine apparel. In the last decade I have been impressed that these hermaphroditic phantasies are frequently spontaneously given in the projective records of individuals who are later found to have been child molesting. I speculate that this is another manifestation of an underlying infantile personality in which there is an omnipotent phantasy that one person really can be all things, a boy, a girl, or both.

Gender confusion is also indicated when there is evidence on projectives in men of a rejecting attitude towards masculinity or a feminine identification. The inverse would be scored in the case of a woman. This includes reversal of the gender ordinarily attributed to Rorschach or the TAT figures, or combining and blurring the assignment of sexual characteristics. For example, the popular figure on Card III might be emphatically (Phillips &* Smith, p. 140, 1953) described as a bisexual or a hermaphroditic person. Card IV which is often seen as having phallic properties may be described as a vagina with a penis attached.

Role confusion is perhaps related to gender confusion. It is indicated when there is a rejecting attitude toward one’s own gender. The figure on Card 3 of the TAT, which is usually seen as a female, may be described as a female, even though it is almost always seen as a young boy wearing a tie. Following the discussion of Schafer, there may be references to lesbians embracing or men embracing, or frank transvestitism. Area of the Rorschach usually seen as one gender may be perceived as the other gender. Card IV, the so-called Father card (Klopfer et. Al 1954; Hayden, 1981) may be seen as a uterus with fallopian tubes. The underlying fantasy of this content category and of gender confusion seems to be "anyone can be anything."

(5) The idea of failure of control seems self-evident. This refers not only to the history of pedophilic incidents but also to imagery in dreams. Cherny and Shevrin (1974) have presented research concerning the validity of FC minus Rorschach responses, especially those of violent content, in predicting emotional discontrol from Rorschach records (FC minus refers to a blending of coloration and form in a way which is infrequently done.) A recent dissertation by Kenney (1991) has focused on several Rorschach variables including those which reflect affect modulation. Kenney studied Rorschach protocols from individuals in custody/visitation disputes who were not accused of sexual child abuse, individuals in custody disputes who were accused of sexual child abuse, and individuals who were convicted of child abuse. She found that in protocols of the convicted abusers there were a number of structural scores which appear to be significantly different from the national non patient population reported by Exner (1886). I say they "appear" to be statistically different with respect to Exner’s caveat not to draw statistical comparisons from his samples an other samples scored by entirely different teams of scorers such as those in Kenney’s study.

Kenny, having observed significant differences within her own study and what would appear to be significant differences between the accused custody/visitation population and the general population, reasons that in the child abuser one would expect to find a low affective ratio because of withdrawal from affect because they mange it poorly (1992). (The affective ratio refers to the responsiveness to color vs grey cards.)

However, there are many instances of failure of control that do not include sexual abuse. Hence this indicator must be used with great caution. We have also noted consistent and marked differences between the custody/visitation sample as a whole and the general population which suggest that those who get embroiled in custody visitation disputes may comprise a class of individuals characterized as manifesting a diagnostic syndrome of relationship disorder marked by naivete, psychological simplicity and general loosening of perceptual accuracy of the type often associated with borderline character syndromes. (This is inferred from high Lambda and low F+% where the Lambda score is calculated by dividing the number of easy, form-determined Rorschach response by the total number of response. A higher Lambda score suggests a greater degree of defensiveness. The custody/visitation population seen in my office gives a Lambda score of 1.37. The normal, non-stressed, non-psychiatrically ill population averages a Lambda score of 0.59 (Exner, 1985). The X+% is a Rorschach measure of perceptual accuracy. The X+ score indicates the degree to which a subject perceives the ink blots in an ordinary fashion. A response is "ordinary" if it is seen by approximately 3% or more of non-stressed, non-psychiatrically ill persons. The normal range for the X+ is between 71% and 89%. The custody/visitation population, which is presumably experiencing distress when the test is administered, has average 57% plus or minus 10%.) Curtis (1980) commented that those who become embroiled in custody disputes seem to manifest a syndrome he called "relationship disorder."

Manifestations of failure of control are often seen in projective material, such as the TAT or the Incomplete Sentences Blank (ISB), especially when the ISB is examined for levels of Ego development (Loevinger & Wessler, 1970). During the development of the capacity to regulate one’s actions, there is often a phase in which the developing child acts appropriately only if the person who represents the sanctions is present. Norman dreamt of molesting children, even when he though he should not be doing so. He was afraid of being caught, not by his own sense of shame and guilt but by external authorities. Fantasies of loss of impulse control are often elicited in thematic material, incomplete sentences and in Rorschach content of both suspected and non suspected individuals, but the failure of conscience (technically the superego) seems to be an important part of the personality of the child molester.

"Failures of emotional control" are scored from Rorschach determinants when there is a preponderance of FC minus or a preponderance of inaccurate human movement. Parenthetically, this is often accompanied by a remarkably low F plus and extended F plus ratio. By low, I mean less than 50, although this is not necessarily the case. When there is no FC and a preponderance of FM in a Rorschach summary, the question of brittle emotional control is raised. Failure of control is seen in the Incomplete Sentences Blank when a score of Delta or below is achieved when the ISB is scored by Jane Loevinger’s (1970) method for measuring ego development. Loss of control can also be scored from the TAT stories. In interviews there are instances of drunk driving arrest, speeding tickets, addictions. Often there is a history of religiosity representing an effort at exerting external control by massive suppression of impulses.

We also consider there to be a pedophilic indicator for instances of projected stories of externalized super ego figures who are ineffective. The woman in Card 4 of the TAT is seen as trying to prevent the male from doing an impulsive, violent or destructive act, but she fails to control him. The man in Card 13 M-F is depicted as having raped a woman and being ashamed of it, or having murdered someone in a fit of anger, in which case his own guilt has not been sufficient to prevent the breakthrough impulses.

(7) On the basis of clinical experience we added attention to egocentricity and narcissism, which we lump together and loosely define as not recognizing the effect one is having on another. This lack of recognition may be due to a faulty system of self esteem which requires one to focus too much on maintaining a sense of one’s sed. This characteristic seems essential to the predisposition to pedophilic activity. Egocentricity can be measured by the Exner Ratio, and it may reflect the characteristic of being oblivious to the effect one has on another. A cutoff point of .55 was proposed, but more recent thinking (Kenney, 1992) has emphasized the importance of both high egocentricity ratios and the presence of one or more reflection response. For example, I saw and individual, a professional, who readily admitted to playing a "weenie grabber game" with a small daughter and four-year-old son. He rationalized this activity with the allegation that his wife did it too. He also admitted to going to bed with and sexual fondling his 16-year-old daughter by a prior marriage. He had little overt conflict about these activities, but on the testing his egocentricity ratio was 1.09, which is approximately three times the normal egocentricity ratio when calculated from the Exner scoring system for Rorschach response. Such a high egocentricity ratio means that reflection responses occurred. Very high elevations on Scale 4 of the MMPI, say t > 85, also indicate egocentricity, and the Million narcissism scale may be informative in modifying or confirming the importance on a finding of an unusual egocentricity ratio. Probably an unusually low egocentricity ratio also indicates troubles appreciating the effect one has on another. Both high and low egocentricity scores reflect difficulties with self perception. Recently a suspected child abuser had an egocentricity ratio of 0.05.

(8) In addition, we have noted that a combination of heightened scores on Scales 3, 4, 5 and sometimes 6 of the MMPI frequently accompany profiles of individuals who have been accused of pedophilia. Scale 5 (masculinity/femininity) indicates not only sensitivity but possible feminine identification in a man, whereas Scale 6 (paranoia) indicates a mistrustful attitude toward the adult world. One or all of these scales may be elevated in the pedophilic individual. This is partly an empirical finding which has bee reported by Lachar (1974). Descriptively it seems to mean that these individuals are high dissatisfied with usual adult personal relationships and somewhat sociopathic in their orientation, hence the peak on Scale 4 (psychopathic deviate). An earlier study by Toobert, Bartelme, and Jones (1959) isolated scale 4 as particularly elevated among a sample of incarcerated male pedophiles. A professional with abn advanced degree who had a singularly high MMPI Scale Four along with Rorschach indicators of dependancy was not found to have been child abusing, but he was found in court to be a regular viewer of pornographic movies, a cocaine abuser, and a physical abuser of adult women.

(9) A potential problem arises in the records of individuals who are extremely guarded. We have considered scoring an additional pedophilic indicator for evidence of excessive guardedness in the context of a court-ordered evaluation because of allegations of pedophilia. By excessively guarded I mean less than 14 responses with high Lambda on the Rorschach, paucity of TAT content, conformist ISB, relatively high L and K scales on MMPI (K > 6, L > K). In my office K has averaged less than 61 for the custody sample. L is usually below 60 in evaluations done for family law disputes. The MMPI has its own validity scales. The Lambda coefficient of the Rorschach has been observed to be quite high in some individuals, while others respond with very few response. One corporate executive of a Fortune 500 company who showed considerable imagination and marketing in developing an international company could not come up with more than 12 responses for a Rorschach, no matter how hard he was pressed. Originally we did not use high Lambda or low R as an indicator of pedophilia, because in custody visitation evaluations Lambda generally exceeds 1.4, but research by Kenney (1991) indicates there is reason to consider high Lambda when other indicators are also suggested.

It must be recalled that we are talking about a testing done in the context of a court-ordered evaluation of pedophilic allegations which have not yet been proven in criminal proceedings. The indicators might not be elicited in other kinds of testings or might be over represented in testings done for individuals who are appealing to the tested to explore every nuance of their personality as part of a general therapeutic evaluation or a worker’s compensation suit for emotional disability. The knowledge that these records are likely to be used in court has a particular effect so that these patients are, as a rule, much more guarded than is, for example, a cooperative patient who is seeking his/her outpatient psychotherapist’s sympathetic ear through the test.

Certain test-taking sets can also interfere with accurate assessment by this means. Some individuals think it is a sign of sophistication to be sexually provocative in their responses. There may be a question about the adequacy of this person’s judgement, but this test taking set might led to a spurious concern with the indicator of polymorphously perverse predisposition. An indicator is more significant if it is in a response inaccurately seen, i.e., unusual or minus according to Exner’s tables (1985), or if the subject places undue emphasis on an indicator seen in an usual location (Phillips & Smith, 1953, p. 140). For example, momentary gender uncertainty to the popular figure on Card III is not scored, whereas the indicator is scored if the hermaphroditic qualities are emphasized. Hermaphroditic qualities attributed to the popular figure of Card VIII would be cored, since Card VII does not pull for confused gender associations.

How many indicators do we look for before we begin to feel certain that we have seen an individual with pedophilic predisposition? Having posed this question in 1985, I am no longer convicted that this is the most fruitful way to use these indicators. The quality of the overall record is what is important. Probably if we see no indicators we would feel that not only is the probability of pedophilic behavior low, but it is also very likely that this individual has many positive attributes with which to relate to children and others. Seldom have e seen more than a few areas in one record, but often in a suspected individual tow or more areas will be quite apparent. Major psychological illness tends to raise the number of indicators observed, but not in every case.

A case example may be useful. A professional man who was mildly depressed had been prohibited from seeing his children without a monitor. In interview he described a "tickle game that had perhaps gone too far." While putting his daughter to bed at night he pretended his fingers represented little animals that would scamper around her body gathering "food" which they would excitedly "bury" in her private region. In other words he admitted to sexual stimulation of the child. His tests were more normal looking than many of the custody/visitation sample in respect to the most frequently scored clinical scales of the MMPI-2 and the form quality of the Rorschach, but there were certain features which seemed unusual.

In the interview he seemed to blame external circumstances. He felt he was tricked into this behavior by a wife who demanded he help put the children to bed. The subject, however saw nothing wrong with his tickle game and felt the whole thing was being blown out of proportion. (The children who played were allegedly terrified of him.) He strained logic as measured by a high WSUM6 score of the Rorschach. (This is a weighted sum of six different kinds of illogical, inappropriate thinking.) There were instances of loss of control in the TAT. In other words, he had the characteristic of loss of control by failure of self monitoring (superego failure). Hermaphroditic Rorschach responses were part of his record which also contained four sexualized responses involving oral phantasies phallic phantasies, and phantasies abut the insides of a woman’s body including the cervix (polymorphous predisposition). He responded with several cartoon figures (childlike identification) and seemed to be dependent in his adult relationships (unresolved dependency) as indicated by the quality of the TAT as well as ISB completions and social ineptness suggested by the MMPI-2. The interview confirmation, which is unusual, afforded an opportunity to inspect the record to see whether any of the above indicators could be discerned. The testing also lent strength to the impression that he remained at risk for inappropriate behavior.

Questions of validity must be considered in a context of who is using the tool withing which population and for what purpose. We cannot calculate a coefficient for all situations. These idea are often useful in organizing impressions gained in the evaluation of individuals alleged to have abused children. It is only one avenue of thinking, and it can only be one avenue to which we turn when the other lines of evidence are not incontrovertible. The custody/visitation sample is different from the general population in important ways and may be far more homogeneous than the general population, which makes questions of discerning variations such as pedophilia within it even more difficult than, say, discerning a probable regressed intrafamilial pedophile from the average hardworking spouse. Just because there is no infallibility to these is no reason not to apply them to difficult determinations. It is frequently important, particularly when there is an advantage to be had by raising allegations of pedophilia, to look at the accuser too.

In conclusion, it must be stressed that psychological tests usually cannot prove who did what with which to whom. However, we can use them to assess personality pedophilic individuals to a greater extent than non pedophilic individuals within the population of those seen for custody visitation evaluations We have e suggested that suspicions are supported when only a few indications are present because we believe a false negative (suggesting a parent is not abusing when that parent actually is abusing) to be a greater hazard to the children involved than a false positive. Nevertheless, most of the alleged abusers in our sample have appeared to have been incorrectly suspected in that the allegations were not substantiated either in the testing or in subsequent court procedures.

References

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Nicholson, Bruce E. And Bulkley, J. (eds). (1988). Sexual abuse allegations in custody and visitation cases. American Bar Association National legal resource center for child advocacy and protection, Denver. P.54.
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Special thanks to Dr. Gary Chase and Dr. Lionel Margolin.

Author:
Carl F. Hoppe, Ph.D.
360 North Bedford Drive #215
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
(213) 550-0314