Course Details
Course Description
NOTE: This 36-hour CE course has been approved for 6 hours of POST CPE credit.
The nature of the forensic psychology field • Approaches to forensic assessment of psychopathy and malingering and deception • Assessment for high-risk occupations • Voir dire and jury selection • Civil issues such as child custody; childhood trauma; emotional distress in personal injury cases; employment discrimination and harassment; and Americans with Disabilities Act cases • Criminal evaluation in areas such as child sexual abuse, delinquency, competence to confess, competence to stand trial, and criminal responsibility • Assessment in special populations such as sexual predators, battered women, violent offenders, and those with pathologies of attachment, and criminality
Course Objectives
Explain the nature of forensic psychology, including
- an overview of forensic psychology,
- forensic training and practice,
- ethical principles and professional competencies, and
- expert testimony.
Discuss approaches to forensic assessment, including
- third party information in forensic assessment,
- forensic and clinical issues in the assessment of psychopathy, and
- the evaluation of malingering and deception.
Present special topics in forensic psychology, including
- forensic assessment for high-risk occupations,
- eyewitness memory for people and events, and
- voir dire and jury selection.
Summarize topics regarding civil forensic psychology, including
- child custody evaluation,
- assessing childhood trauma,
- personal injury examinations in torts for emotional distress,
- assessing employment discrimination and harassment,
- evaluations in Americans with Disabilities Act cases, and
- roles for the forensic psychologist in substituted judgment.
Discuss topics in criminal forensic psychology, including
- evaluation in delinquency cases,
- competence to confess,
- the assessment of competence to stand trial,
- evaluation of criminal responsibility,
- sentencing determinations in death penalty cases, and
- child sexual abuse evaluations.
Assess special populations and topics, including
- sexual predators,
- battered woman syndrome in the courts,
- pathologies of attachment, violence, and criminality, and
- violence risk.
Predict emerging directions in forensic psychology, public policy, and the law; and therapeutic jurisprudence.