From: Brett
Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2013 4:53 PM
To: choicesmi@aol.com
Subject: Our short discussion yesterday.
Rick,
Note: her own mother which is the only living grandparent was cut out of the kids’ lives in the divorce decree. What bad luck for poor Angela, both her own mother and ex-husband are not fit to spend any time with her children.
To be frank, I was not pleased with the way our discussion went yesterday. I have not received your final recommendation, but what I gathered from the call, you are going to suggest further individual counseling for myself for the purposes of “dealing with unresolved matters from the divorce” (not quite sure if you stated this as the exact reason but obviously to deal with something). Also you mentioned you might suggest another psychological to be performed.
When I asked you about the psychological evaluation that was just performed, your first response was “I never received it”. I then mentioned I sent this to you directly with my first email correspondence not to mention it had to be in the stack of court records provided by plaintiff’s attorney. Then you said something like “maybe I have, it’s just not in front of me at this time”. You also stated “it is good to get these redone depending on age of the report”. To me this suggests one of 2 scenarios: (A) you didn’t read it, or (B) you read it and disagree with the resolution.
The psychological evaluation you should have reviewed was registered with the court on 11/6/2012 or just a little of 1 year ago.
Here is the summary:
So if I read what is stated above it would appear Dr. Friedberg does not agree with your proposed plan for me getting individualized counseling. You go on to mention that “a lot of the psychological examinations only interview a single party thereby rendering them inaccurate because they are entirely based on only one viewpoint.” In other words, suggesting someone could lie since no other party is consulted. Dr. Friedberg has been in practice for over 25 years, he has a PhD in Psychology from the University of Michigan, he charges $220/hr for his time. I think it is fair to believe people have come before him and lied and he has developed methods to detect and determine how truthful he believes each subject to be. He addresses the likelihood of me distorting the information I told him with this comment:
Dr. Friedberg spent about 10 hours with me while you 1 hour and both of you spent a few other hours going over the same court documents and emails you received. Well not all documents since I never were provided emails only Angela about me.
From the report.
Summarizing our short discussion, it appeared your mind was made up on how to proceed. Every challenge I brought up, you had an explanation. “It’s been 3 years and this would be disruptive to the children - maybe 4 or 5 years would be better”, “It’s not really about the psychological state of either parent, but what is best for the children in the situation”, “Angela provided me with an email from you from Feb 23rd 2013 along with others and it seems like you are attacking her. This might suggest unresolved feelings from the divorce”, “I spoke to AJ Kitchen, someone you went to over 3 years ago and who charged $75/hr and who didn’t like you, for her comments. It is safe to conclude she still doesn’t like you”, “Brett I’m not saying to give up on ever seeing your kids, just waste another year or so of your time jumping through new hoops and spending gobs of money addressing issues that do not exist according to the your psychological evaluation I did not read or agree with. This way at a later date, we can come up with new excuses why this reunification shouldn’t occur”, “I think I am going to recommend another psychological done, maybe it will come up with a different conclusion than the one provided which states you should have no problem interacting with your children.”
Do you see how this might in anyway be frustrating to me?
When you and I started out, I would say was optimistic. Your original plan was to meet with me, meet with the kids, then see if you thought a reunification could be possible. Your claim was “why reinvent the wheel by bringing Angela into the equation”. This then changed to meet with me, meet with Angela, then I don’t know. This needed to be done to comply with the court order supposedly. Now your decision not to move forward is made without ever meeting with the kids. Could be too stressful for them and bring on unwanted anxiety I think was your explanation. IMO your role here was not to determine whether I am psychologically fit to be a parent, nor if additional counseling needs to occur for me. Those questions were already answered. The goal was to talk to the kids and see how this might impact them. Seeing as I am on board for this there were only 3 other parties to consider: Riley, Brayden, and Angela who of course would and never will be on board for this arrangement.
During our meeting you bring up stories about cases you have dealt with. One was with some man who hadn’t seen his daughter in a year or so because the mother claimed abuse. You claimed you did not necessarily like this man, but found no real reason for him not to be in his daughters life. After spending 100 hours or more on the case and testifying in court on his behalf, reunification occurred. This man had an outstanding balance with you for $2500. And he compensated you for all this time and effort by not paying this bill. Over time you just gave up trying to collect.
What I find interesting with this story is why share it with me? What was the purpose.. just breaking the ice chit-chat or some deeper probing. My question to you at the time was did you believe the wife was telling the truth about her claims of abuse and your answer was no. Perhaps one explanation the guy did not pay you is that it is sometimes hard for innocent people to feel grateful for having to defend their innocence. Speaking from experience – it’s a demoralizing endeavor. As I stated in my first email to you, I personally am not a good fit for the FOC system.
You concluded our call with the suggestion of a follow up call to provide me with a list of therapists/counselors you would recommend for me to see individually. If this is the only thing you wish to discuss in a future call, than that call is not necessary. If you would like to talk about other topics contained in this email, then please call to discuss.
Brett