Unprofessional, unethical and emotionally abusive counseling by Dr. Lehmer
1. Informed Consent Forms. Dr. Lehmer never provided us with informed consent forms, required by the California Board of Psychologists. Had I known of my rights from the very beginning, I would have requested electronic recordings of the sessions and now had a proof of how unprofessional, biased and unhelpful overall Dr. Lehmer was.
Dr. Lehmer refused to discuss the nature and anticipated course of sessions despite my continuous requests.
Dr. Lehmer is unprofessional, unethical and negligent. Dr. Lehmer chose to neglect getting familiar with the nature of the interpersonal conflict and the history of our case, despite the documents that she was provided with during our first meeting on May 17, 2011. Instead, Dr. Lehmer made assessments based on stereotypes. Five minutes after meeting me and the other parent for the first time, she concluded that we must have cultural differences that promote conflict, which is not at all true and not any of our concerns. As I seemed the "culturally different" one according to her speedy assessment, she then repeatedly silenced me when it was my turn to speak, as we had agreed to take turns with the other party. Even when I managed to say something, she disregarded it as unimportant. To the contrary, anything said by the other parent was warmly accepted as a valid concern. She even acted so unprofessional, that she started chatting with him as if I was not present. She asked him: "So, tell me about your life, Jim?" "Where do you go camping?" among other inappropriate questions and remarks, while she never asked me anything of that sort. Her extreme bias was openly expressed and not only deprived us from getting any constructive work to improve our co-parenting communication done, but it was truly emotionally abusive to me.
In response to this first session, I decided to put in writing my concerns, inform her of the reasons for and the purposes of our court-ordered counseling with her and ask of the nature and anticipated course of sessions. Please, find the attached copies of my letters. Ms. Lehmer replied to them but ignored my above-mentioned requests.
It is shameful that in her capacity as psychologist appointed by the court, she was not aware of what the California Family Code Section 3191 stands for: "The counseling pursuant to this chapter shall be specifically designed to facilitate communication between the parties regarding their minor child's best interest, to reduce conflict regarding custody or visitation, and to improve the quality of parenting skills of each parent."
Ms. Lehmer, however, maintained that co-parenting counseling should only involve discussing logistics of co-parenting such as child exchanges and their locations, vacations and other matters like that, which have always been discussed with our court mediator. Most importantly, we did not have any issues regarding logistics at that time. We were ordered to co-parenting counseling for reducing interpersonal conflict and getting help building a good line of communication between the two homes that our daughter has to live in. In my letters to Dr. Lehmer I informed her of what the Family Law means by co-parenting counseling, but she ridiculed me saying that I am not understanding. read more