I would find Diane Van Ness' current listing in The Miami Herald as one of South Florida's Top-Rated Lawyers to be laughable if it weren't so tragic. First, this is an ad, not editorial. Further, it is written and paid for by Van Ness herself.\r
\r
My desire to briefly review this deplorable guardian ad litem stems from the horror I have seen her willfully put some fine divorcing families through.\r
\r
Importantly, while some decidedly brave and loving parents, usually mothers, were under my care, Diane Van Ness virtually dreamweaved her own narratives about them; this without ever contacting me to review the facts. In fact, my name was never mentioned in any of her status reports, often for years. My own reports, which I made all attempts to file with her, were never referred to, appended, quoted or paraphrased by her. My partners on these cases were either not quoted or paraphrased, or were so grossly misquoted that I can only refer to her reports as falsified or perjured.\r
\r
My diligent work with these parents and children included the therapeutic process as well as administration of tests such as MMPI. It also included thorough histories from prior treating professionals of the parents as well as the children. I repeatedly reported that these parents Diane Van Ness referred to as having ""severe personality disorders"" had no such disorders. \r
\r
I am the clinician. Diane Van Ness is no clinician. I will qualify this by stating that I engaged in the therapeutic process with these parents, whom Diane met once or twice briefly, for years at a time.\r
\r
Diane Van Ness' ad also mentions high conflict cases as stemming from addiction. While it is common for parents of special needs children, or parents that are battered or otherwise struggling, to dabble in addictive processes due to traumatic stimuli by the other parent, I have witnessed Diane Van Ness falsely describe these parents in her reports, to such a degree that I can only call her reports ""delusions."" Some of the finest parents I work with are those in 12-Step programs, programs which Diane herself is familiar with, and which, ironically, judges admire and weigh heavily in these cases.\r
\r
It has never been clear to me why Diane goes to such extreme lengths to ""punish"" these parents, typically mothers, by falsely labelling them as mentally ill and then reporting on them to the court.\r
\r
While I have never treated Van Ness myself, I can state that people who work in these professions under the guise of helping children, who falsify documents, omit evidence, block due process, and otherwise weave nightmarish quagmires, are themselves suffering from severe personality disorders and utilize their professional arena in order to resolve their own childhood trauma.\r
\r
I have at times been concerned that Diane Van Ness' bullying of the parents in these cases would eventually lead to bullycide, a tragedy beyond comprehension for the parent and children alike. Indeed, parents and children alike have called me in crisis due to Van Ness, which oftentimes was alarming.\r
\r
My colleagues and I, until Diane Van Ness was thrown off of these cases, experienced vicious, unrelenting and illegal behaviors.\r
\r
My recommendation is to never take her reports seriously and to stay as far away from her quagmire as possible.\r
\r
Thank you. \r
\r
more