Psychology for Dummies (69 page)
Read Psychology for Dummies Online
Authors: Adam Cash
Tags: #Psychology, #General, #Body; Mind & Spirit, #Spirituality
Every now and then, a person commits a crime, sometimes horrific and sometimes not, and his lawyer, whether it be a high-priced celebrity lawyer or his public defender, says that he was “insane” at the time the crime was committed. Most of us are familiar with this defense strategy. We’ve seen it in the movies, and we’ve seen it in real life. What counsel is arguing following a conviction or stipulated verdict (“Yeah, okay, my client is guilty as charged”), is the defendant is not guilty due to having been insane at the time of the commission of the alleged crime.
An
insanity plea
is a legal concept that states that a defendant is not legally responsible for the crime due to being insane at the time it’s committed. It’s a legal concept, not a clinical concept or even a logical one. Many people would see most horrible acts of murder as “insane” or that only an insane person could do such a thing. But legal insanity is different than these common-sense or clinical notions.
Each state in the United States has its own version of legal insanity, but they all basically use a standard known as the
M’Naghten rule:
The person who committed the unlawful act was “labouring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or, if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong.” It really comes down to whether the person committing the act knew the difference between right and wrong, and whether this confusion was due to a mental disorder or disease. If the defendant didn’t know what he was doing was illegal, was this because of a mental illness?
This is the point where the forensic experts weigh in. An expert witness, like a forensic psychologist or psychiatrist, evaluates the defendant and makes a determination of whether he or she meets the criteria for legal insanity. The game is usually played with experts representing both sides, the prosecution and the defense. It can get kind of confusing because the two (or more) experts often disagree with each other. They make their cases and are cross-examined by the opposing counsel. Ultimately, however, it all comes down to whether the jury or judge (in a court trial) believes one expert over another.
This is serious business. An expert’s opinion may mean the difference between a defendant going to prison for the rest of his life, being executed, or going to a hospital for mental health treatment. You can bet that the pressure is on. The stakes are high, and the methods employed to make these decisions are well thought out. Three basic questions have to be answered:
Does the defendant actually have a mental disorder or defect?
What is the person’s mental status now?
What was the defendant’s mental state at the time of the crime?
The answers to these questions only lead to more complex questions that psychologists often use psychological testing to answer.
What if someone tries to fake mental illness in order to go to a hospital instead of going to prison or receiving the death penalty? The
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual,
4th Edition, defines
malingering
as the “intentional production of false or grossly exaggerated physical or psychological symptoms, motivated by external incentives. . . .” Can we catch a malingerer? Yes, but it’s really difficult, and it’s always easier if we can catch them telling someone the truth and confront them with that evidence. Malingering can be ascertained through special interview techniques and extensive psychological testing. It is, however, estimated that some significant percentage of patients remanded by criminal courts to state hospitals are, in point of fact, malingerers. There’s ways to catch the liars, and forensic psychologists are on the job ever refining their techniques to do just that.
In addition to the more legal aspects of their work, forensic psychologists also engage in the treatment of criminal offenders, specifically those with mental illness. They also conduct “predictive” evaluations, in which they help determine if a particular person might be dangerous to the community if he or she was released from prison or a mental institution. Because professionals in this field recognize the difficulties in predicting the future, assessments of dangerousness are more assessments of identified risk factors (and the degree to which such factors can be addressed) than actual predictions of the likelihood of specific future behavior.
The Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution holds that “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” This phrase has been interpreted to include the non-treatment of mentally ill criminal offenders while they are incarcerated. In 1978, Monahan and Steadman conducted a survey of all prisoners detained in the United States. They found that 7 percent officially were designated as mentally ill. Newer estimates range from 15 to 20 percent and rival that of the general population. Either way, the fact of the mentally ill in prison makes defenders of the Eighth Amendment nervous. They see prison as a harsh environment to begin with that can exacerbate the mental illness of a particular inmate. Ignoring such an inmate’s mental health constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.
What’s the answer? Provide mental health treatment in prisons and jails in the same way that medical treatment is provided. Nothing too complex there. So, in addition to the more popularly known activities of forensic psychologists, responsibility for the treatment of the mentally ill behind bars is included in their job descriptions.
In this part . . .
P
art VII starts out by introducing you to psychological testing and assessment. (Yes, this is where that famous instrument, the Rorschach inkblot test, is discussed.) Within this discussion, I deal with the most common areas of psychological assessment, such as intelligence and personality. Next, I introduce you to the traditional “talk” psychotherapies — psychoanalysis, behavior therapy, cognitive therapy, and other popular forms of psychological treatment. I give you the lowdown on the different approaches and goals of each of these therapies, and I provide a look at how each of these therapy encounters unfolds. Finally, I talk about stress and the relationship between psychological and physical health.
In This Chapter
Taking history notes
Making the grade
Typing the tests
M any people go to a psychologist or other mental health professional because they’re experiencing strong negative emotions or facing difficulties in their everyday lives. Just like visiting the family physician, a prospec- tive patient comes into a psychologist’s office with a complaint, issue, or problem. A lot of times, the individual is looking for answers because he or she is unsure about what’s really going on. The psychologist listens and tries to assess the full extent of the problem, attempting to gain a fuller understanding of the patient’s situation. If the psychologist gets the problem wrong, he or she won’t be able to fix it. See Chapters 19 through 22 for more information on this topic.
I recently bought a new computer. I took it home, set it up, and everything seemed great. I was really excited to get on the Internet and start surfing around. When I tried to connect, it didn’t work. You can imagine my frustration after I had spent over a thousand dollars on a brand new computer that wasn’t working right. I spent three frantic days trying to figure out what was wrong. I changed the phone cable, I called the phone company, and I called the store I bought the computer from. Nothing I did and no one I talked to helped me fix the problem. Finally, my wife pointed out (three days later) that I had plugged a cord into the wrong jack in the back of the computer. She simply placed the cord where it belonged, dialed up the Internet, and connected with ease. I had the problem incorrectly identified and was therefore clueless about how to fix it. I figured that, because I was a scientist, I had thoroughly ruled out all possible causes and variables. Boy was I wrong.