7-10-05
Dear Dr. Pingitore,
I want to take this opportunity to once again thank you for the P-S Evaluation which you performed on me, six weeks ago.
I also want to share with you some comments I have in regards to it. This will be a mixed bag of what might be called positive and negative comments, as well as a couple of requests.
First I do want to express a little anger. It comes from the belief that we had an understanding that my privacy would be respected. Yet as I read the Evaluation that you sent to me and to Walter Bugden, I am struck by the sense that my privacy was not respected at all. There is a sense of betrayal here, which mixes in with all the positive feelings I maintain toward you.
But moving along to the main things I want to express:
While much of what you reported is an accurate re-creation of what I divulged to you in our meetings, there were a few particulars in which your representation were different than I recalled and reported to you, in significant ways. Speaking to these, I would like clarify what may well have been simple misunderstandings:
First is the claim that I “escorted” Ms. Mumford out of the library, as you held on page 2. Actually I did not escort Ms. Mumford from the library at all. In fact, as I said, I left the library alone, not believing that she was coming with me. It was while I was out-side and walking toward my car that she burst outside, apparently terminating her conversation with the librarian in order to catch up to and intercept me.
Secondly is the erroneous claim that upon being so startled by Ms. Mumford’s question to me about “making a baby” that I sat down naked on the ground. Actually it was the rear of my car that I sat upon, and not entirely naked. Please check your notes. The ground would have been a very awkward place from which to put on my pants, but more importantly, had I been on the ground I believe I would have had adequate time to have staved off Latitia’s attempt to mount me. Perhaps that’s unimportant , at this point, but I wanted to set it straight.
Lastly is the claim, on page 6, (Assessment procedures) that “The stimuli also contained visual presentations”. In fact, it did not. It was all auditory.
There were two other points of your reconstruction that I am not contradicting, but which I do have questions about, and that I request that you check your notes on to see if they occurred in quite the way you have represented.
First is the claim on page 2 that I had reported an intent to have sexual relations with Ms. Mumford behind the water tower. Please do not excited as I question this. In fact, since I did believe that Ms. Mumford was an adult when I formulated this idea to go up to the towers, (and possibly in response to her invitation) then intending consensual sexual relations there would have carried no criminal intent- so do not think I am ques-tioning this so that I can deny it happened. Rather, I am questioning it because I doubt I made that declaration. I do not remember saying that to you, and wonder if it is in fact an interpretation, or interpolation. Even believing sex was a likely outcome, I do not believe I would have concluded that it was a given- certainly not enough to declare an intent….
The other thing that stood out for me is a phrase that I cannot locate right now, but which attributed to me the quote that “young women like to be (or ‘need to be’) coerced.” As I recall, I did express wonderment about whether this was a necessary dynamic for some young women, as I attempted to reconcile some opportunities I had missed out on as a young man. But it reads as if I am glibly declaring that caveat as truth, or saying that it is okay to do that, or saying that I have even done that myself (coerced young women into sex)- none of which are true. I suspect that this quote was out of context. Please check.
Finally, there is one piece of data that I was disappointed to see omitted. That was the fact that Ms. Mumford told me that she loved me just before we went up the hill. I add this because the claim that I was trying to “take care of her” doesn’t really make any sense without this information. In fact, it was a combination of wanting to elicit more information from her about the rape as well as wanting to be sensitive to her exposed vulnerable feelings that motivated the walk up the hill. Plus I liked her company. I don’t know what the phrase “taking care of her” would mean here, and it’s not quite correct.
Moving along now, I want to aver that- just as you warned me- I did not under-stand everything you included in your evaluation. I do not know, for example, what a “sad dysphoria” is, nor was I aware that I carried an air of martyrdom about me. Wow! And I was especially stunned by the assertion (Rohrschach) that I display “…some difficulty in thinking logically…and…comprehensible manner” What ever could you mean by that? Nonetheless, as I read this clinical profile, alongside of that perplexity, I felt amazed and excited- for I felt that some really important dysfunctional aspects of my personality were being touched upon and revealed there. On the whole, the evaluation resonated so well with some secret fears and also with some observations that others have “accused” me of, that I believed that the profile must be accurate, even while inaccessible. And in that recognition- the problems now being identified and verbalized- I imagine a great opportunity to examine and expunge some of the behaviors which bedevil me. I was so amazed by the extent of your insights that I wondered whether it was really possible to have gleaned all of this just from those tests and the interviews alone!
The problem is, I do not believe that these are the types of issues that a P-S Counselor deals with. Am I wrong? These issues, I suspect, are for Clinical Psychologists…
I don’t know how much experience you have had with plethysmographs. If you have not ever listened to one, I would urge that you do so, for having done so, I believe that you too would develop your own misgivings about the process, without anyone having to suggest its deficiencies. I must tell you that I do not have faith in the results. In fact, I believe that I could write a semi-scholarly exegesis on this subject, and persuade any critically thinking person that they should be very skeptical of its “findings”. I will not do this here, but I will instead give you three or four paragraphs of synopsis, along with some salient examples of its inadequacy. Please bear with me.
After playing multiple tapes, depicting coercive and violent sexual situations with teenage and pre-pubescent girls, the last two tapes the Clinician played for me called for me to imagine sexual situations with first a “girl”, and then with a “boy”. In both cases I was told to regard the youths as, “…just the age (I) like them”. Well that mandate struck me as a starting point that presupposes I have some pederastic or pedophilic tendencies to begin with. For how should I imagine a girl to be “just the age I like her” if I like my “girls’ to be adults? So I imagined the “girl” as 21 years old, and then I permitted myself to enjoy the fantasy. As for the “boy”, given the same instructions, I made him 23, which was easy after the tape described his “rippling chest muscles”. How many boys have “rippling chest muscles”? Then- homosexuality being no crime, and the tape being only about masturbation anyway- I was able to enjoy it too. The point is that since no other tape featuring a homosexual theme was played for me, that it had to have been on the basis of this one scenario that the Examiner made his conclusion. Therefore, I think we can reasonably conclude that it was on the basis of these two back-to-back tapes that the Examiner concluded that I had “…achieved significant arousal for sexual vignettes involving a male and female child…” (page 6). Well of course I did! My children were adults! Am I to now undergo counseling for my “arousal to children” on these bases?
This is just one example but the whole thing was fraught with similar interpretive problems. Clarification about what part of any given scenario excites the Respondent is not factored in, such when I was appalled by the coercion aspects of a taped scenario, but then endeavored to enjoy the ensuing situation anyway- knowing in advance that most men are aroused by teens, and therefore feeling no need to try to throw the test by denying this arousal- then that arousal response scores in the “aroused by coercion” column… There is only one score per scenario- at the end of it-so it cannot be argued that the variables are factored in.
Another dynamic involved the nauseating repetitions of abhorrent scenarios of sex and violence, which I resisted, in self-protection. But after several of these, I started to ask myself why he was playing so many of these, and decided that there must be an actual normal low level sexual arousal to some degree of violence, such that by not acknowledging arousal to it that I might appear to be less than truthful. So I gave myself arousal scores for those.
I believed that Dr. Maram would have his own plethysmographically generated scores to compare with my own, so as to negate my own scores if I did not show these responses- but upon questioning him, he told me that it was my own scores which he re-lied upon in his assessment. Incredible! So should I now go to counseling for issues that were “proven” by my own over-stated scores? You cannot expect a critically thinking person to believe in all this. It begs the question of why they would use the Respondent’s scores at all, instead of the generated ones. How scientific can that be? What can possibly be the standards? And if they always use the Respondent’s scores, then why bother with the machine at all? And if they only sometimes use the Respondent’s scores, then when do they use which? I do not think I would be alone in my suspicion that they use the higher scores- so as to best prove the premise that they want to prove! It all suggests impure motives, and smacks of some self-perpetuating juggernaut… (Instictively, Dr. Maram struck me as a good and competent man, and I suspect he is aware of these limitations, but nonetheless- as my first Attorney said- in these things they are always determined to find something- and so they always do!)
So I am afraid that about this, then, I do feel an unsalvageable cynicism. My confidence has been decimated. Another fact that supports my contention that it is flawed is that more modern P-S Evaluations now use the ABEL anyway…
In any event, I know that I do not have attitudes about coercing anybody- of any age- into sex. It will be impossible to convince me that I do. I do not say that to be defiant, but I have both my self-knowledge and my intellectual skepticisms about this plethysmograph device. I think one day they will write about these things with the same tragic disdain that we now reserve for the likes of Cyril Burt, of days gone by, with his “skull-volume” intelligence evaluations…
So my concern is that you will have recommended me to a counseling scenario with someone who will believe- as a result of this report- that I have coercion issues with young girls. Thus I envision a scenario in which I enter into counseling with someone who will spend enormous amounts of time and energy attempting to elicit an “admission” from me about this issue (that I do not have) and who will tell me I’m in denial because I won’t admit it, and who will report to the court that I am “not cooperating”, and who will ultimately hold me over for another six months, and then another…and then another…
I think my time would be more productively spent with a regular Psychologist- working on my real issues.
You told me you were going to recommend me to three to six months worth of counseling. This was based on (as you said) my Plethysmograph results- and this was even though those results are in conflict with your findings, in your Evaluation . Yet you now recommend one year of counseling- with extension as an option- on the authority of the Counselor. Why did you do that? If you had recommended three months I could have done it here before returning to Breck. If you had recommended six months I could have done it in Breck. over the winter. I thought we had discussed that too.
But this new recommendation leaves me in limbo. It mandates staying here for at least a year, foregoing Breck. entirely- or going back to Breckenridge, and staying through the arduous low-money off-season to get this done…In fact, it now raises issues of where I can go at all- for I must live in a place where not only is that kind of service provided, but where it is provided very cheaply.
I am on the brink of bankruptcy, you see, and expect to file before the rules change on Oct. 17th. You told me you’d be sensitive to my financial situation in making this recommendation- that “we don’t want to impose too much of a hardship on you”, but now it has become a more imposing term than you said it would be. It is a real hardship! What about my operation? Am I supposed to not get my arm operation now? I’d like to do it before bankruptcy, or I do not see doing it at all. The plans I thought I could make based on your verbal recommendation have all been thrown into turmoil. Please tell me why you changed this recommendation. I implore you to change it back again.
Meanwhile I still have neither job nor home, and I still feel diminished of ability to work at all, as well as quite socially isolated. Sometimes I can barely function. I twitch all the time. Nevertheless, I expect soon to have secured both of these prerequisites, as you said I must do before counseling. No mention has been made of a starting date for my counseling. So how much time do I have left to fulfill the former requirement (food and work) before I must begin the latter? This is all very difficult.
Yes, I’ve gone on and on, and not without some emotion. And yet I have one final question, which pertains to your diagnosis of what went on with me that day: You said that I had suffered a depressive dissociative episode (Or something like that: I can’t find that right now either) my question is: Is that circumstance consistent with a temporarily diminished capacity?
At this point I am feeling a lot of emotions and I am conscious that some of it may be spilling out of the page at you. I want to finish on a more upbeat note, but I’m not sure how to do that right now. Let me just say that I do feel a need for some counseling very soon, to help me deal with this enormous overload- and to allay some of those feelings you have so accurately diagnosed.
Sincerely, (etc.)
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8-30-05
Dear Dr. Pingitore,
I have been offered a job at Peachwood’s Steakhouse in Scott’s Valley (greater Santa Cruz), and so far I have had two days of training. The Proprietor avers that he will remain busy through the end of October. After that, we shall re-evaluate our respective needs. As you know, I would like to think about returning to Colorado soon after that…
You are also aware that- barring some unforeseen windfall- that I expect to file for bankruptcy protection before the middle of October. Having done that, however, will hardly solve my financial problems, as my debt includes almost twenty thousand dollars from my family, on whom I will not default.
So the up-thrust of this epistle is to inform you that I do have at least a temporary and putatively full time job, and that I still beseech you to alter that recommendation any-way.
I maintain my house share situation as well, and it is working out nicely.
We could meet to further discuss all of this, as you suggested, though my car is signaling its own imminent demise. It’s a good hour of freeway driving to get to your of-fice, and I’d honestly rather not. Of course, if that would be the deciding factor, then I certainly would…
Wally did send your recommendation along to judge Mower, but, as I said, I see no reason why his possession of that report should codify, or finalize its recommenda-tions. My first Attorney told me that a more fair-minded man is not to be found, so I think he would accept an alteration with equanimity, should you decide to make one.
Finally, I do want to thank you for your openness to a continuing dialogue here. For that, I feel less abandoned to the “juggernaut”- as I’d told you I was formerly feeling.
Sincerely,
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11-21-05
Dear Dr. Pingitore:
I find myself upset with you again. In my first two correspondences I took you to task for various things, and now I need to add some others. Mainly, it is my sense that you have ceased to be the Psychologist that I have hired and have instead become a “cam” in the Legal/Psychological complex. You have refused to communicate with me, in other words, even though I am the person you should be answering to first.
Yes, “answering” is a strong word, and I considered changing it. But I think it is correct. It was I who hired you!
It is not the State of Utah which conscripted you to this purpose. It was me. And I did not conscript you out of any prior knowledge, or with any kind of expectation of se-curing a more favorable evaluation. I hired you to make an honest assessment- but I no longer believe that that is what you’ve done.
What is more, I think any reasonable person would harbor such suspicions. After all, you verbally expressed a recommendation that you were going to make, and then you seriously changed it. I implored you to alter it, and you indicated that you would, but about all that, you refused to communicate with me. And after pledging yourself to respect my privacy, you presumed to blab every aspect of my life. And there was so much you got wrong that I question whether that was really due to inattention.
It would probably be a little over the top to suggest that your misrepresentations were the price I had to pay for refusing to let you video-record me- for that would be to suggest some level of gamesmanship that I’m not ready to believe. But it does very much appear that in all of this you have capitulated to someone else’s agenda.
Why else would you change a recommendation, and then refuse to deal with your own client? Whose agenda have you capitulated to? If you capitulated to someone else’s mantra about “just making sure”, then I call upon you to be strong enough to go with your own call. I mean your original, and real call- the three to six months.
I’ve probably got you riled with anger too, at this point, so it might not be the best place to ask a touchy question. But as you can probably guess, I’m going to do that any-way. The question is this: Did you become more invested with feeling yourself to be part of this vital and important Psycho/Legal complex than in serving my needs? Your silence and lack of communication on this point only lends itself to such speculations. It makes me wonder, in other words, whether the role you assumed for yourself fed some needs in you, and were exercised at the expense of me?
You said three to six months. And then you said one year- or more. Then you stopped communicating with me altogether. That is not trustworthy behavior, Doc. So what am I to do? I believe that I am entitled to an explanation about why you changed this recommendation. And I believe that as a result of the decisions I made based on what you said that it would be, that I am justified in wanting you to change it back.
Finally, I’d like to understand why- after charging way, way more for your ser-vices than I thought I understood- you would completely freak out because I had not paid you a mere ten days later? You actually threatened legal action, after TEN days! Could it be that your recommendation was really a vindictive reaction to that “delinquency”?
Finally, where do you get the authority to tell me where I have to live? I think that is way out of your ken. It suggests a control dynamic that is out of reason. And now I’m told that whoever I seek counseling from can make even MORE recommendations! So at what point does all this end? Can he extend my counseling for 19 years, and tell me what kind of car that I must drive too?
I’m beside myself, here, Doc. Fortunately I have found some counseling that I think will benefit me. Not knowing what my recommendation is, I think that was a reasonable approach. But I’m not going to authorize my new counselor to betray my every utterance as well- as you did.
I guess I wasn’t finished after all. For what’s with this claim that I have a “history of psychological problems”? I guess to that I have to say “Congratulations”, and very sarcastically so. For my stints in therapy have been on my own volition, and for issues of the sort that millions of people have. What is more, until this “incident” I have never had that “history” result in violence or threats of any kind, or any danger to the community, or legal entanglement.
You set the cause of Psychotherapy itself back thirty years- to say, Thomas Eagleton- when you characterize the person who knows when he needs help and seeks it as having “A history of psychological problems”. It also smacks as yet another capitulation to someone else’s agenda. For now I can be characterized as a person with such a history, if some disease like Eric Lind decides he wants to stick it to me once again. All you have done is promote the machinations of such people. You have become their Enabler.
Confusedly,
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11-22-05
Dr. Pingitore
Enclosed is the letter I wrote for you over the last weekend. I had it sealed and ready to send yesterday, but prudently, I waited an extra day. I’m glad I did because I got your cell-phone message this morning. It’s amazing how such a contact can melt away a lot of anger.
That being said, I am enclosing the letter anyway. After all, I have both told Judge Mower I was going to send it to you, and shown it to my new counselor, who agreed that I had raised some excellent arguments. And besides- you can take some healthy expressions of anger, right?
Thank you for your willingness to agree to a creative solution. Breaking up the counseling certainly speaks to that. But all that being said, you still did say three to six months. I do not think I will want to be here next winter, to go through six more months of something you (and I) originally did not think I need. And all this buncombe has gone on for long enough. I want to be done with my counseling when I leave here in April. I want to get on with my life. Enoughs enough. (Perhaps Eric Lind can do the other six months for me!) And so, once again, I await your response.
Thank you
Sincerely, (etc.)
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3-10-06
Dear Dr. Pingitore,
In view of your repeated refusals to respond to my entreaties (read abandonment) I did not think I would have further occasion to correspond with you. Unfortunately circumstances have taken another unexpected turn, and I need to appeal to you once again to clarify for me what you want me to do.
I have enclosed copies of two letters which it is not necessary for you to read, but which would fill out the picture of what I am dealing with here if you really want to know.
My most recent therapist has thrown me out of her therapeutic group, in part for reasons that might have resolved differently had I had access to my latest report. Her name is Mary Augustyn, and she referred me back to a Dr. Robert Warren, who is the local Sex Counselor (or whatever). Well I interviewed with Dr. Warren several months ago, and encountered enormous obstacles to working with him. Indeed, I have absolutely no trust in him, and do not believe I could ever trust him. If you care to understand the reasons, I believe the enclosed letter will inform that situation.
If you do not care to read it, however, I can summarize my experience with him:
1) He diagnosed me as a sex-addict, knowing nothing of my sexual history beyond my experience with Corissa.
2) He then denied that he had diagnosed me a sex addict, when I called him on it.
3) He diagnosed me as having an anxiety condition, and intimated that I’d have to go on meds- this before confirming every suspicion I’d been feeling anxious about.
4) He assured me that he would call for at least three lie-detector tests, during which he’d ask if I regularly think about having sex with children- and every time.
5) He said that I would forever be regarded as a dangerous person.
6) He became visibly upset when I told him you had diagnosed an acute depressive episode. He seemed incredulous, I believe, that any sexual assessor would have so betrayed the agenda.
I believe that he is out of control with control lust. I cannot work with him- nor him with me. So my question to you becomes: what do you want me to do now? Do you real-ly want me to work with such a predatory zealot who not only pooh-poohs your diagnosis but who ignores my issues so as to treat me like a dangerous predator? Is that what you had in mind? Are you comfortable with that? Is this how my issues will get resolved?
I am asking you one more time to make a recommendation that will speak to my needs and not to the predations of these dishonest people. For the love of God- is this what you envisioned when you said “We don’t want to make this too hard on you”?
What do you want me to do now? Must I leave my chosen home again- having decided I have to stay here year-round now to complete your three-to-six month cum one-year of counseling- and having made financial commitments owing to the circumstances? I just want you to let me know what you want me to do? I am very weary of guessing.
. Thank you/Sincerely,
