Assessment Skills Lab I

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Forensic psychological assessment differs in several important respects from psychological assessment, which occurs in a general clinical context. First, subjects are mandated to undergo a mental health assessment at the request of the court, which may adversely affect their willingness to participate and lead to distorted response styles. In contrast, in most other assessment contexts, the subject is seeking help and is open to discuss his/her problems with the assessor.

Secondly, the forensic psychologist is asked to answer questions that are posed by the court, which requires the psychologist to ‘translate’ legal questions into questions that a psychologist can answer. Finally, the forensic psychologist needs to be able to administer, code, and interpret specific forensic assessment instruments (FAIs), relevant to the type of legal questions asked. Among these, the question of psychopathy is highly prominent.

Psycholegal questions posed to the assessment psychologist are very different from the common questions in other fields of psychology.  Examples include: Is there a relationship between the mental disorder of this subject and his behaviour during the crime? What is the risk of future re-offending in this arsonist?The answers to these types of questions  require extensive knowledge of offender types, base rates of recidivism of different offender types, relationships between different mental disorder symptoms and offending behaviours, and psychological assessment, employing the relevant FAIs.

Students receive specialised training in two essential forensic assessment instruments: the Psychopathy Check List-Revised and the PCL: Youth Version. They will  learn how to conduct a biographical forensic interview, code the PCL based on interview and file information, write up the results of this assessments in a structured and transparent forensic report.