- Title
- Problems and prospects for forensic assessment and reporting from the PCP perspective: a preliminary examination
- Creator
- Warren, Bill
- Relation
- Personal Construct Theory & Practice Vol. 5, p. 99-110
- Relation
- http://www.pcp-net.org/journal/pctp08/warren08.html
- Publisher
- PCP Information Centre
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2008
- Description
- The legal systems with which psychologists in Australia, the UK and North America are familiar, and in which they may work as ‘expert witnesses’, that is, ‘common law’ countries, frequently require a ‘diagnosis’ be made and, if necessary, defended under cross-examination. This last system is the ‘adversarial system’ in which the parties conduct themselves as combatants, vigorously putting evidence and challenging each other’s claims as if in a ‘battle’. For a psychologist convinced of the merit of Personal Construct Psychology (PCP), however, there are conscientious and good theoretical objections to the practices of categorization and classification that underpin the idea of diagnosis. The notions of ‘disorder’, ‘mental illness’, ’mental health’, and ‘diagnosis’ also take on a quite a different significance in PCP. This raises a problem for such a psychologist assisting the court. Given the significance of diagnosis in the law and the PCP position in relation to it, this paper considers the broad question of whether and how PCP might assist the court process. It does this by discussing the legal context in which psychologists operate when they provide so called ‘expert evidence’. In addition, a number of other matters are raised to further highlight the problems and prospects for PCP in this particular area of forensic work: the ‘inquisitorial system’, which is more familiar in Continental Europe (and elsewhere); a recent notion of ‘therapeutic jurisprudence’; and the problem raised in forensic assessment as ‘malingering’.
- Subject
- expert witness; common law; personal construct psychology
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/41122
- Identifier
- uon:4677
- Identifier
- ISSN:1613-5091
- Language
- eng
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