Who Is the Client? The Ethics of Psychological Intervention in the Criminal Justice System

Abstract: In a 1987 American Psychologist article, Tom Grisso summarized the state of forensic psychological assessment, noted its limitations and potential, and offered suggestions for researchers and practitioners interested in contributing to its future. Since that time, there have been many important developments in the field of forensic psychology, as well as in clinical psychology more generally, some of which were anticipated and recommended by Grisso, and some of which were not. Forensic psychology is now at a crossroads, and the specialty must make an effort to respond to current challenges if it is to aid in the administration of justice by assisting legal decision makers. The need to distinguish between and identify levels of forensic knowledge and practice, establish guidelines for practice, educate legal consumers, and devote more attention to treatment issues in forensic contexts is highlighted.

Abstract: Treatment and rehabilitation of mentally disordered offenders has traditionally been a function of high security hospitals, but is increasingly based in community settings. Evidence for the effectiveness of psychological interventions remains scarce, and for secure hospitals, is limited to demonstrations of short-term effects using a conventional range of behavioural and cognitive–behavioural procedures. Some findings support the use of directive community programmes in meeting the needs of public safety and improved reintegration of the individual. Long-term services are required, and more complex psychological contributions are needed to meet the multiple needs of this client group.

Abstract: A survey drawn from social-science research which deals with correlational, ex post facto, true experimental, and quasi-experimental designs and makes methodological recommendations. Bibliogs.

Abstract: After many "out-of-print" years, this volume has been reissued in response to an increasing demand for copies. This reflects that the fundamental questions that motivated this book thirty years ago are still being asked. But more important, the answers -- or at least their outlines -- now seem to be in sight. In 1968, this book stood as an expression of a paradigm crisis in its critique of the state of personality psychology. The last three decades have been filled with controversy and debate about the dilemmas raised here, and then with renewal and fresh discoveries. It therefore seems especially timely to revisit the pages which posed the challenges. Mischel outlined the need to encompass the situation in the study of personality, but with a focus on the acquired meaning of stimuli and on the situation as perceived, viewing the individual as a cognitive-affective being who construes, interprets, and transforms the stimulus in a dynamic reciprocal interaction with the social world. He focused on the idiographic analysis of personality that had originally motivated the field, and the complexity, discriminative facility, and uniqueness of the individual, and sought to connect the expressions of personality to the individual's behavior -- that is, to what people do and not just what they say. Even the intrinsically contextualized "if...then..." expressions of the personality system -- its essential behavioral signatures -- were foreshadowed in this book that fired the opening salvo in a search for "a truly dynamic personality psychology."

Abstract: Diverse data challenge and undermine ihe central assumptions of the tradi tional trait approach to personality. The implications for conceptions of individual differences and situations in the study of personality are examined. The issues discussed include the nature of behavioral \"specificity,\" the acquired meaning of stimuli, the uses and misuses of traits, and the construction of personality. To move toward a more adequate theoretical approach to persons, the following cognitive social learning variables are proposed as basic units for the study of individuals: cognitive and behavioral construction competencies, encoding strategies and personal constructs, behavior-outcome and stimulus-outcome expectancies, subjective stimulus values, and selfregulatory systems and plans. The specific interactions between these person variables and psychological situations are analyzed within the framework of a cognitive social learning approach.