Forensic Thoughts

At the most recent annual Division of Forensic and Family Psychology (University of Nottingham) lecture given by Lawrence Jones he spoke about trauma-related stress and how that is important for working with people who have been identified as struggling with personality difficulties. The focus of that discussion was really on the work of Lanius (2015) and others seeking to draw our attention to the impact of trauma in working with our clients. The language of this thinking refers to altered states of consciousness and Lawrence provided some examples of people that he had worked with who reported that during the time of their offence they could not remember their actions. It was at this point that my thinking went in a slightly different, but connected, direction and got me wondering about something that I think is important to consider, irrespective of working with personality or trauma.   Who’s in the room? It is likely that all of us have had the experience of reading someo...

Every now and again I do some private work. Mostly when people hear about private work in forensic psychology they imagine wealth and all the glories excess money brings. It’s certainly true that I once had a whole week on Grand Canaria on the basis of private work and took a date to Sat Bains on the back of work that became grandly entitled by a judge as “The Duff Protocol”. It’s also true that I really don’t do it for the money because, in my opinion, it’s not worth the money. Is that easy for me to say? Perhaps more so than for you if you are paying nearly 10k a year for your Stage I or Stage II, but equally I am not blessed with a fridge full of Veuve Clicquot and Hackleback . My desire for this note is not to put anyone off private work but to raise an issue that I have experienced quite often and that I think it is useful to be prepared for, but also because it seems to me to be a counter-productive consequence of our adversarial legal system and how psychologists can be pulled...

 When we are working with a client there are two distinct cognitive systems that are involved, ours and theirs. Each of these has been formed by biology, experiences, possibly by injury, illness perhaps, so they are likely to be somewhat different and these differences can help us understand why our worlds are not the same and why we react differently to the same situation. We both hear Lil Wayne playing loudly from a bar, you walk towards it and I put white-hot pokers into my ears. These differences explain why we can think of people as clients; they have reacted in some way that society disapproves of and something needs to be done to keep society safe (and, one might hope, improve the quality of life of the client who otherwise would find living in society difficult). One thing we might do is offer psychology.   Why do we offer psychology? Have you ever thought about what psychology is? The BPS have and their description includes, “It's about understanding what makes...

I am fascinated by the ways in which people can have an impact on others where it is not obvious how that is achieved; the art of persuasion, The Forer Effect, Cold Reading, some of the well-known illusions performed by Derren Brown, the use of ‘nudge’ to change behaviour, even the ethically dubious and possibly made up techniques of the PUA community. In this vein, I wonder is there another principle, from forensic science, that might have value for the forensic psychologist to consider, which could link to intuitive communication and clinical intuition?   Learning from Horatio Caine For many of us TV programmes like CSI: Miami, with the magnificent David Caruso, are a welcome escape from work. Although they may be cliched police procedurals they have provided something of a window on the workings of forensic science, where a single fibre links someone to a murder, and justice prevails. It has also resulted in the rumour of a CSI Syndrome or CSI effect, whereby our belief in...

S ometimes there is a thought that buzzes around like a wasp in a jar and the the only way to escape the noise is to write it down. In the past I'd try to get these nuggets on our course's blog, but it was always a bit of a process and probably there are issues about what can go on an official site without legal disclaimers and editorial consistency, and my suspicion is that once published on a University site technically they become the University's property so I can't later get a book deal. So, I thought I would keep them here. The content will be vaguely related to forensic psychology and maybe there will be something of interest and value, but it is my view of things and it is much better if you have your own view of things. There will be no particular order. #1 A Lesson from Forensic Science #2 Distributed Cognition, Situated Cognition, and Forensic Psychology #3 Private Work as Collaboration or Confrontation #4 Your Client is not Your Client #5 Words used stupidly...