ABSTRACT
Custody evaluations are psychological evaluations ordered by the court when there are issues about parenting capacities that cannot be resolved by the litigants in consultation with their attorneys or by a negotiation or conciliation process by the various agencies of the court. The case discussed was part of a full custody evaluation conducted in doctor's independent practice. The evaluation was court-ordered. Parents signed contracts specifying the evaluation procedures and fees. A psychoanalytic perspective has had a long history in all aspects of child welfare litigation and child custody disputes are no exception. Anna Freud worked closely with a group at the Yale Child Study Center in the early 1970s to apply a psychoanalytic understanding of child development to legal issues in child welfare, such as custody in divorce, foster care, and adoption. A custody evaluator is most often asked to use the evaluation to assess the quality of parenting behavior.
