ABSTRACT
The subject of expert mental health testimony in child abuse determinations is timely if for no other reason than the increasing tendency for attorneys or the courts to request such testimony (Ceci & Hembrooke, 1998). The tradition of helping and caring within the mental health disciplines is an insufficient basis for determining whether some mental health testimony is inadvertently doing more harm than good due to its sometimes inaccurate and/or misleading nature. The need for dialogue between the legal and mental health professions is intensified when dealing with highly contested issues such as delayed memory for reporting abuse; recantations; proffering professional opinions of abuse based upon syndromal evidence; use of techniques such as anatomically detailed dolls for sexual abuse evaluation; whether a child suspected of abuse should be seen conjointly with the suspected parent as part of an evaluation procedure; interpretations of children’s drawings; the necessity for supervised visitation; validity questions about child reporting due to potential contamination secondary to suggestibility; repeated questioning; selective reinforcement for answering in a given direction; or other forms of coercion.
