Handbook of Forensic Assessment: Psychological and Psychiatric Perspectives


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The first handbook to explore forensic assessment from psychiatric and psychological perspectives"The editors have assembled a magnificent collaboration between psychiatrists and psychologists to bring forth critical knowledge and insight to the core competency of forensic assessment. This handbook is essential reading and a comprehensive resource for both newly minted and seasoned forensic practitioners."
� �Robert I. Simon, MD, Director, Program in Psychiatry and Law, Georgetown University School of Medicine
"This long-awaited resource blows the dust off traditional standards, shakes the cobwebs out of our old ways of thinking, and shows the practical steps in producing work that will make sense to juries and withstand the most skillful cross-examination. . . . [T]here is no better resource."
��Kenneth S. Pope, PhD, ABPP, Diplomate in Clinical Psychology; coauthor, Ethics in Psychotherapy and Counseling, Fourth Edition
"From preparation to collection to interpretation to communication of the results, this excellent, comprehensive treasure shows how to conduct forensic assessments. Each splendid evidence-based chapter is presented from the collaboration between psychologists and psychiatrists. It is a must-have resource for forensic experts as well as general practitioners or anyone wishing to understand standard of care in forensic assessment."
� �Melba Vasquez, PhD, ABPP, 2011 American Psychological Association President
The practitioner-oriented coverage in the Handbook of Forensic Assessment examines:
The current state of psychology and psychiatry—including requisite clinical competencies, ethical guidelines, and considerations of multidisciplinary collaboration
Various approaches to assessments in criminal and civil matters
The principles of effective preparation, data collection, and interpretation, as well as communication for each special situation
Topics including competence to stand trial, sexual offender evaluations, addictions, child abuse, and education
Overarching practice issues, such as practice development, retention, compensation, consultation, and forensic treatment
Includes sample reports that demonstrate the integrative potential of both psychology and psychiatry
Incorporating a wealth of current and multidisciplinary research, the Handbook of Forensic Assessment is destined to become every mental health professional's most valuable one-stop reference for their forensic work.
Handbook of Forensic Assessment: Psychological and Psychiatric Perspectives Review
Mental health practitioners know that, where psychology goes, the legal system often follows - and vice versa. The Handbook of Forensic Assessment is a refreshing addition to the forensic psychology and psychiatry literature precisely because the editors have succeeded in sidestepping the turf battles that often exist between these two disciplines, in order to develop a truly collaborative and integrative approach.
This is a big book with a big mission: to cover virtually all the applications of psychology and psychiatry to the fields of criminal and civil law, and in meeting this challenge it manages to avoid the redundancy that often creeps into to multiple chapters in large handbooks of this type. Criminal law topics covered include evaluation of criminal competencies, criminal responsibility and the insanity defense, sentencing guidelines, and juvenile justice evaluations. Civil law applications include personal injury assessment, employment issues and fitness for duty, violence risk assessment (although one might argue that this belongs in the criminal law section), family law, disability determination, civil competencies and guardianship, abuse and neglect, and psychological autopsies. Additional chapters address the practicalities of forensic mental health practice and the assessment of malingering (again, this latter topic might have been placed in the criminal or civil law section).
Consistency and uniformity are maintained by having each chapter provide a scholarly review of the subject matter, followed by an organized sequence that explains how the evaluator (1) prepares for the assessment; (2) gathers relevant data; (3) interprets the findings; and (4) communicates the results. Each chapter is written by at least one psychologist and one psychiatrist, but the reader never detects a whiff of parochialism, and the interdisciplinary voices mesh seamlessly throughout the narrative.
Busy professionals who have previously slogged through turgid tomes will understand that for a "handbook" of anything to be useful, it must be engaging and accessible. Happily, whether through careful selection of skilled chapter authors or meticulous editing (probably both), this book reads clearly and crisply across the many topic areas, making its perusal a pleasure, not a chore.
Don't let this volume's heft scare you away: the flowerpot you displace on your bookshelf will thank you for its new sunlit place on your windowsill. In addition to serving as a comprehensive summary for professional practice, this book can be used as a primary or supplementary text in graduate courses in forensic psychology and psychiatry, as well as a valuable reference source for research. No matter how long you've been doing this, there is enough juice in this volume so that virtually every reader will learn something new.
- Laurence Miller, PhD
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