Anonymous Tip: Dr. Schram, Stay-at-Home Mom

A Review Series of Anonymous Tip, by Michael Farris

Pp. 159-164

I am feeling stuck in this hearing and we have got to get out. Peter has done some things right and some things wrong, but nothing really egregious. Mostly it has been simply boring. And so, in the interests of getting the heck out of this hearing, I’m going to see if I can make it through the rest of it in this segment.

As you may remember, Judge Romer just called a fifteen minute recess. Farris tells us that Gwen, her parents, and Peter left the courtroom silently, glaring at Donna and Gail. During the recess Dr. Schram arrived. She’s the psychologist Peter hired, remember, and her testimony will likely directly contradict that of Dr. McGuire, the psychologist selected by CPS. The court reconvened at eleven (for anyone who is still keeping time) and Peter called Dr. Schram to the witness stand.

“Please state your name for the record.”

“I’m Jean Schram.”

“And your occupation?”

“I’m a clinical psychologist.”

“Where and when did you get your various college degrees?”

“I received both my bachelor’s and Ph.D. in psychology from Washington State University. The bachelor’s was in 1965. The Ph.D. was in 1987. I was a mom in between. I went back to school after my youngest graduated from high school.”

No, I’m sorry, but Dr. Schram would not say that. Besides, speaking as an academic, it’s the Ph.D. that matters here. No one cares what the bachelor’s was in or where or when. If Dr. Schram had a master’s degree from another university or a second Ph.D. in another area that would be relevant, but her bachelor’s degree is not. If her bachelor’s was in something totally different that gave her another perspective it might be relevant, but even that is iffy, as a bachelor’s degree doesn’t generally make one an expert in a field. And while we’re at it, it would be bizarre to refer to someone’s bachelor’s and Ph.D. as “your various college degrees.” That’s not how it works.

This whole thing was just a setup to make sure Judge Romer knows that Dr. Schram was a good wife and mother who quit work to raise her children and only went back to school once the youngest had left home. Why it’s important for Judge Romer to know that I have no idea, because in real life it wouldn’t be, but then, we’re not in real life, we’re in Farris-land—not to be confused with fairyland. They’re just as imaginary, but one is much more pleasant than the other (well, depending on whether one goes in for the darker medieval fairy myths, I suppose).

Dr. Schram says she doesn’t have an area of specialization, but tends to do work on “family issues, marital problems, or children.” It’s a bit odd to me that Peter didn’t choose a child psychologist for this. Anyway, Dr. Schram explains that she interviewed Gwen and Casey both separately and together. She says her graduate intern gave Casey and Gwen routine tests while the other was being interviewed. Peter asks the graduate intern’s qualifications, we we learn that she just received her Ph.D. from WSU.

Peter resumed his pacing. “Dr. Schram, what was your assessment of Gwen and Casey Landis based upon your interview and tests?”

“Objection,” Willet said. “I don’t think she can testify based on tests she did not perform herself. These exams are not like simply taking a temperature where a nurse can report a simple fact to a doctor. Psychological tests are much more complex, and the person doing the scoring must observe the person being tested.”

“Overruled,” the judge said before Peter could say a word. “I have psychologists in here all the time looking at tests other doctors have performed, and they comment and interpret based on these tests. I am sure your Dr. McGuire would feel quite competent to interpret the results given by Dr. Schram here. Overruled.”

I’m honestly not sure what’s going on here except that that made Gail look really incompetent.

Anyway, Dr. Schram reports the following:

“My findings were that the relationship between Gwen and her daughter is warm, loving, and quite positive. I found no area of abnormalities between them. ”

. . .

“Gwen has some understandable feelings of bitterness and anger toward her ex-husband, but nothing out of the ordinary. And she is certainly quite upset with this whole process, especially the strip search and removal of her daughter. But, as a mother, I certainly think this is quite understandable and within normal limits one would expect.”

. . .

“Casey is a very fearful little girl right now. Very fearful. It is outside the normal ranges for a child her age. She’s going to need some counseling.”

Two quick notes about language. I have to say, I love these posts in part because of the interaction with commenters each week. I have readers who are lawyers and social workers or otherwise have exposure to these fields, as well as psychology, and they always have interesting things to say. Anyway, last week my readers noted that “bitterness” is not a term a psychologist would likely use—Dr. McGuire used it last week too, remember—and that “strip search” is not a term social services uses either. Instead, they refer to their physical examinations as medical examinations, and they tend to be conducted by medical professionals. I thought I’d mention it because these are two ways Farris is using specific language to shape perceptions.

Peter stopped pacing and resumed his second favorite position—standing behind his chair, gripping the back. “Dr. Schram, were you able to ascertain the cause of the fear?”

“Yes, I was. In my opinion her fear reactions were brought on—”

“Objection,” Willet called out. “Mr. Barron needs to lay a proper foundation.”

“Sustained. Turn-about is fair play, Mr. Barron. You made the same objection with Dr. McGuire.”

“Peter smiled and bowed his head. “Fair enough.”

I don’t want to bore you, so I’ll just tell you that Dr. Schram confirms that she applied the “reasonable medical probability” standard, meaning, as she explains, that the vast majority of professionals in her field would come to the same conclusions with the same data. She says the data she relied on included the interviews and the tests, but especially the interviews, and especially one specific piece of data.

Dr. Schram reached into a file folder and pulled out a picture—a picture drawn by a child with crayons. “This picture was drawn by Casey in the draw-a-person test. My assistant directed her to draw a picture of some people and this is what she drew.”

. . .

“It shows two women—one can tell they are women because they are wearing dresses—with quite scary-looking faces or heads. They are standing by what appears to be a bed.”

“Did you ask Casey any questions about this picture?”

“Yes, I did. My assistant brought it to me after the testing, and during our interview time I asked Casey to tell me about the picture.”

“What did she say?”

“She said it was the mean ladies in her room.”

Peter asks about the cause of this fear, and Dr. Schram says:

“I believe it is a reaction brought on by the forced strip search by the two CPS workers and the subsequent removal from her home.”

Peter notes that Dr. McGuire testified that he believed Casey’s fear was caused “by her mother’s excessive spanking” and asks how that comports with her findings. Dr. Schram says it did not fit with her observations at all, “particularly when I observed the two of them together.”

And here is where I wonder why Dr. Schram viewed the two together but Dr. McGuire did not. It seems to me that if I were a judge and wanted to hear the opinions of two different psychologists, I would want them to conduct similar interviews and tests. After all, you want to be able to compare apples to apples, not oranges to apples. Does the court order the basic examinations to be conducted, or is that in the hands of the professionals contracted to perform the examinations? And if it’s the latter, why didn’t Dr. McGuire ask to see the two of them together? After all, the fact that Dr. Schram says Gwen and Casey interacted perfectly naturally is going to look pretty strong when held against the fact that Dr. McGuire never actually saw them interact at all. Wouldn’t either he or CPS have thought of that?

I understand that Dr. McGuire and CPS are supposed to be the bad guys here, and on some level I don’t disagree at all. Gwen has shown utterly no regard for children, describing Casey as a “little rat” and forcibly stripping her during her investigation, even as she screamed. Dr. McGuire took a bribe, and Blackburn, the CPS director, offered said bribe. These are not good people. Of course, Peter is not the good, ethical lawyer he thinks himself—he himself engaged in a bit of blackmail earlier, if you remember—and Gwen is nowhere near the stable, gentle mother Farris wants us to think her. The only one who appears to be innocent of all of this is Gail—she is using falsified evidence to argue her case but doesn’t know it’s falsified. I would say Romer was innocent of all this too, if it weren’t for his willingness to engage in a “good old boys” dynamic. This lack of someone to root for is maddening.

But you know is even more maddening? The fact that even the people who are supposed to be the bad guys are mind-numbingly incompetent. McGuire was worried last week that he’d included some mention of the bribe he took in his report, but why would he write something like that down? And why didn’t Donna even think to contact Gordon? If she really wants to punish Gwen for yelling at her she’d be trying to find a way to place Casey with Gordon. And here, Dr. McGuire failed to do tests that Dr. Schram did and is going to look stupid and have his testimony one-upped because of it. And it’s going to get worse.

Anyway, back to the hearing. Peter says he’s finished with his questions and Gail stands to examine Dr. Schram in turn.

“Dr. Schram, do you know Dr. McGuire?”

“Yes, I know him, mainly through his professional reputation, but we met a few times.”

“He testified this morning he has been in practice for seventeen years. And you testified that you have been in practice for only seven years, is that correct?”

“Yes, it is correct.”

“And you testified that you were a ‘stay-at-home mom’ between your two college degrees, did you not?”

“Yes, those were the most important years of my life.”

“At one point in your testimony, you said—and I think I am quoting you almost word for word—that as a mother you can understand the reaction of anger experienced by Gwen Landis in reaction to the removal of her daughter. Do you remember that testimony?”

“Yes, I do,” she replied with confidence.

“Dr. Schram, you are called as an expert witness. A psychologist. There is no category of expert witness called ‘experienced mother.’ Isn’t it a fact that your entire opinion is colored with your mothering experience? You are not giving us a straightforward professional opinion, are you? Aren’t your opinions nothing more than home-spun theories?”

Peter objects, but the Judge allows the question. Dr. Schram says “a person who practices in this profession in a way that is totally separated from normal human experience has only a textbook understanding of philosophy” and Gail responds by asking the judge to strike the testimony on the basis that Dr. Schram was mixing her profession with human experience. The judge says he notes her objection but will allow the testimony to stand.

And this would be why Dr. Schram mentioned in her introduction that she was a mother between completing her bachelor’s degree and her Ph.D. Farris wanted to give Gail an opening to jump in and deride stay-at-home mothers. Gail is probably right that Dr. Schram shouldn’t have said “as a mother” earlier and should instead have remained in the realm of professional psychological expertise—after all, psychology would inform one regarding how a parent would react when separated from their child—but I think Gail’s being more than a little bit unfair here, especially given that Dr. McGuire admitted earlier that his parenting and his study of psychology were in some way interrelated.

I told you I was going to try to finish the hearing, and I was! But look at the time! I have other things I have to do this morning and I know you want this installment while it is still, you know, morning, so this is what you get, such as it is. Next week we’ll look at brief testimony given by Gordon, some brief re-examination of Donna (in response to Rita’s testimony), and then, at long last, Judge Romer’s ruling.