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Overview
Insanity evaluations represent the most challenging and complex evaluations in forensic psychology and psychiatry. Mental health and legal professionals involved in insanity cases need a solid foundation in current concepts, legal standards, and clinical methods. This need is heightened by the substantial legal and clinical changes that have occurred in the field during the past decade.This text from two leading authorities brings forensic professionals up to date on key issues surrounding insanity evaluations. It delineates explicit, research-based guidelines for interview-based assessments, psychological testing and other specialized procedures, and forensic reports and testimony. The volume explores how insanity is conceptualized under the law and differentiated from other standards of criminal responsibility. A range of clinical measures and techniques are examined, with special attention to such relevant phenomena as malingering and amnesia. Included in the appendices are invaluable databases on 413 defendants evaluated for criminal responsibility and 6,479 defendants found not guilty by reason of insanity.
For clinicians, the volume provides the knowledge and skills needed to conduct ethical, legally defensible insanity evaluations and to present their findings effectively. Legal professionals will gain a basis for understanding the logic and clinical methods used by mental health experts and for evaluating the quality of their assessments.
The book contains no figures.
Synopsis
Insanity evaluations represent the most challenging and complex evaluations in forensic psychology and psychiatry. Mental health and legal professionals involved in insanity cases need a solid foundation in current concepts, legal standards, and clinical methods. This need is heightened by the substantial legal and clinical changes that have occurred in the field during the past decade. This text from two leading authorities brings forensic professionals up to date on key issues surrounding insanity evaluations. It provides explicit, research-based guidelines for interview-based assessments, psychological testing and other specialized procedures, and forensic reports and testimony. The volume explores how insanity is conceptualized under the law and differentiated from other standards of criminal responsibility. A range of clinical measures and techniques are examined, with special attention to such relevant phenomena as malingering and amnesia. Included in the appendices are invaluable databases on 413 defendants evaluated for criminal responsibility and 6,479 defendants found not guilty by reason of insanity. For clinicians, the volume provides the knowledge and skills needed to conduct ethical, legally defensible insanity evaluations and to present their findings effectively. Legal professionals will gain a basis for understanding the logic and clinical methods used by mental health experts and for evaluating the quality of their assessments.
Terri L. Vital
This practical text is an outline of clinical methods used for the assessment of criminal responsibility; relevant clinical and legal issues are also illuminated. This timely edition is an update of the initial version published in 1986. The authors outline the essential issues for mental health professionals assessing defendants for criminal responsibility, update clinical methods, and provide explicit standards for forensic practice. Their comprehensive approach to a commonly addressed topic in forensic mental health serves as a valuable guide for both mental health professionals and attorneys. This book is a helpful primer for any mental health professional or member of the legal profession. Overall, the balanced discussion of pertinent issues makes this book exceedingly readable for psychiatrists, psychologists, and general and forensic practitioners. The authors cover the clinician's role in insanity evaluations, the expert-attorney relationship, legal standards, and the critical topics of malingering and deception as well as amnesia and dissociation. In the clinical methods section of the book, the authors elaborate the process of conducting an assessment of criminal responsibility beginning with the interview and proceeding through psychological testing, the use of structured interview approaches, and laboratory and special assessment techniques. They wrap up with detailed recommendations for synthesizing and communicating the findings. In this edition the authors document changes in relevant legal standards and draw upon a larger database of clinical information than the first edition. Throughout the text, the authors give illustrative examples to clarify their points. Thechapter on comparison of structured interviews makes for lively and interesting reading. Because the broad scope of the evaluation process is encompassed and the authors address theoretical as well as pragmatic concerns that typically arise in these cases, this book is as a useful introduction for the novice forensic expert or attorney. Seasoned veterans in the field will find it to be well documented, from both clinical and legal perspectives.
Editorials
From the Publisher
"Rogers and Shuman have done a masterful job. This updated and expanded second edition addresses clinical and forensic needs in detail, combining recent scientific data with practical experience at the interface of mental health and criminal law. The book goes a long way toward clarifying the complex relationship between forensic professionals, lawyers, and the judiciary. I am particularly impressed with its treatment of how forensic professionals can communicate their knowledge to attorneys and courts in ways that are legally useful, while retaining their accuracy and objectivity. Forensic evaluations are not the same as clinical ones, and conducting them well is not an intuitive exercise. All mental health professionals who evaluate defendants or consult to courts on criminal matters should have and read this book. It will serve as an excellent text for graduate-level courses in forensic psychology and psychiatry. Criminal defense attorneys, prosecutors, criminologists, and specialists in mental health law will also find it a useful resource." --William H. Reid, MD, MPH, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, University of Texas Health Science Center, Past President, American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law"This is a great resource for both psychologists and lawyers. The material on legal standards and their applications to clinical work offers the best example I have seen of what forensic psychology is all about--making clinical work relevant to legal processes, and vice versa. The text is coherent, logical, and relevant. In an area where balance is sometimes difficult to achieve, the authors show no evidence of defense or prosecution bias. Beyond its excellent coverage of its central topic, this book provides a breadth of information about conducting fair and competent forensic evaluations." --William E. Foote, PhD, ABPP, Forensic and Clinical Psychologist, Albuquerque, NM
"Rogers and Shuman have done an impressive job with the second edition of Conducting Insanity Evaluations. Comprehensive yet easy to read, scholarly yet also practical, this volume is requisite reading for those involved in assessment, decision making, legislation, or research on the insanity defense." --Kirk Heilbrun, PhD, MCP, Hahnemann University
"This volume attempts to assist psychological and legal professionals to understand each other as they seek to find truth and justice within an adversarial system. Rogers and Shuman succeed in explaining the legal standards of the major insanity defense in terms clear enough for both forensic experts and first-year law students. Also explicated are the competing ends of 'best possible defense' versus the protection of client and public." --Kathleen Price, JD, Professor and Library Director, New York University School of Law
"Written primarily for forensic psychologists and psychiatrists, this book is also a valuable tool for prosecutors and defense attorneys. It offers helpful insights into such issues as formulating voir dire jury questions, fostering successful expert-attorney relationships, and recognizing the most important issues influencing the jury in an insanity defense case. Very readable and informative." --William VanLonkhuyzen, JD, Criminal Defense Attorney, Boston, MA
Reviewer: Terri L. Vital, MD(Rush University Medical Center)
Description: This practical text is an outline of clinical methods used for the assessment of criminal responsibility; relevant clinical and legal issues are also illuminated. This timely edition is an update of the initial version published in 1986.
Purpose: The authors outline the essential issues for mental health professionals assessing defendants for criminal responsibility, update clinical methods, and provide explicit standards for forensic practice. Their comprehensive approach to a commonly addressed topic in forensic mental health serves as a valuable guide for both mental health professionals and attorneys.
Audience: This book is a helpful primer for any mental health professional or member of the legal profession. Overall, the balanced discussion of pertinent issues makes this book exceedingly readable for psychiatrists, psychologists, and general and forensic practitioners.
Features: The authors cover the clinician's role in insanity evaluations, the expert-attorney relationship, legal standards, and the critical topics of malingering and deception as well as amnesia and dissociation. In the clinical methods section of the book, the authors elaborate the process of conducting an assessment of criminal responsibility beginning with the interview and proceeding through psychological testing, the use of structured interview approaches, and laboratory and special assessment techniques. They wrap up with detailed recommendations for synthesizing and communicating the findings.
Assessment: In this edition the authors document changes in relevant legal standards and draw upon a larger database of clinical information than the first edition. Throughout the text, the authors give illustrative examples to clarify their points. The chapter on comparison of structured interviews makes for lively and interesting reading. Because the broad scope of the evaluation process is encompassed and the authors address theoretical as well as pragmatic concerns that typically arise in these cases, this book is as a useful introduction for the novice forensic expert or attorney. Seasoned veterans in the field will find it to be well documented, from both clinical and legal perspectives.
Terri L. Vital
This practical text is an outline of clinical methods used for the assessment of criminal responsibility; relevant clinical and legal issues are also illuminated. This timely edition is an update of the initial version published in 1986. The authors outline the essential issues for mental health professionals assessing defendants for criminal responsibility, update clinical methods, and provide explicit standards for forensic practice. Their comprehensive approach to a commonly addressed topic in forensic mental health serves as a valuable guide for both mental health professionals and attorneys. This book is a helpful primer for any mental health professional or member of the legal profession. Overall, the balanced discussion of pertinent issues makes this book exceedingly readable for psychiatrists, psychologists, and general and forensic practitioners. The authors cover the clinician's role in insanity evaluations, the expert-attorney relationship, legal standards, and the critical topics of malingering and deception as well as amnesia and dissociation. In the clinical methods section of the book, the authors elaborate the process of conducting an assessment of criminal responsibility beginning with the interview and proceeding through psychological testing, the use of structured interview approaches, and laboratory and special assessment techniques. They wrap up with detailed recommendations for synthesizing and communicating the findings. In this edition the authors document changes in relevant legal standards and draw upon a larger database of clinical information than the first edition. Throughout the text, the authors give illustrative examples to clarify their points. Thechapter on comparison of structured interviews makes for lively and interesting reading. Because the broad scope of the evaluation process is encompassed and the authors address theoretical as well as pragmatic concerns that typically arise in these cases, this book is as a useful introduction for the novice forensic expert or attorney. Seasoned veterans in the field will find it to be well documented, from both clinical and legal perspectives.Booknews
This update of the 1986 edition adds Shuman as coauthor, covers changes in the conceptualization and legal basis of insanity evaluations, and includes a data base compiled from studies of US defendants acquitted "not guilty by reason of insanity." Appends court decisions on expert opinions, and commonly used psychological tests. Includes 35 pages of references. Rogers teaches psychology at the U. of Northern Texas, Denton; Shuman is a law professor at Southern Methodist U. School of Law, Dallas, TX. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)4 Stars! from Doody