Whores of the court

by Margaret A. Hagen

Lawyers often refer to them as "prostitutes" or "whores." They are the growing ranks of clinical psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and other mental health professionals who give expert testimony in our courtrooms today. And in far too many cases their testimony - on subjects as varied as determination of competency, dangerousness, parental fitness, custody, personal injury, memory, sentencing, and rehabilitation - helps determine the final verdict. Now, in. This provocative and well-researched book, Margaret Hagen, Ph. D., reveals how expert psychological testimony is a total fraud, showing how the courts have increasingly embraced not a cutting-edge science but, instead, a discipline that represents a terrifying retreat into fantasy and hearsay; a discipline propelled by powerful propaganda, arrogance, and greed. There are now thousands of self-styled soul doctors running amok in our courts, bedazzled by spectacular fees. And wielding unchecked power and influence in the c