Talk:Forensic psychology/Archive 1

Question
I was wondering if anyone knew what kind of high school and college courses could better prepare me for a postion in this field of forensics. Please comment back or email me at everto.deim@gmail.com

Dayven 02:43, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Incorrect definition
Forensic Psychology is the intersection of Psychology and the Law (not just the Criminal Justice System). Forensic, is derived from the latin, "forum" (or more accurately, fora). For example, in addition to competency, sanity, risk assessment, and the 0.01% criminal profiling, that is already listed in this article, foresnsic psychologists provide services for conservatorship evaluations, child custody evaluations, jury selection consultation, and clinical evaluation and treatment for populations including but not limited to prisons, jails, in-patient units, and social services. Basically, anything that requires psychological consultation, evaluation, assessment, and/or treatment within the legal setting. Forensic psychologists may also develop community programs designed to address domestic violence and generalized crime.
 * Definition altered. Good point. Tamara Young (talk) 16:55, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Graphology?
Shouldn't there by a mention of Graphology int this article?  Amit @  Talk  05:30, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Graphology does not fall under the practice of Forensic Psychology. It would be more appropriated located under another area of Forensic Science. Tamara Young (talk) 16:56, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

U.S. bias in this article
This article is very heavily biased towards law and psychology as practiced in the United States. I am a forensic psychology student in Britain, and did not find much of value here. The subject is one of international importance, with large variations between countries which should be reflected in the article. Can any one help me give it a more worldwide perspective? Frank Walsh (1962) (talk) 14:15, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Schooling????
I am just wondering how long it would take for me to go to school for forensic psychology. This is something I have wanted to do for a while. I hope I get a comment back. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.73.101.179 (talk) 20:24, 20 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Depends where you are (what country and what jusisdiction). &mdash; Mattisse  (Talk) 01:16, 6 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Regardless of where in the world one might seek to practice forensic psychology, some graduate level study of psychology would be required. Typically this would involve an MA or doctoral degree. The choice would depend on whether or not one wished to practice as a licensed psychologist, and the requirements for licensure in your locality.Photoarchiver (talk) 05:31, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Criticism Section
I really think there ought to be a criticism section in this article. There are many people, most notably research psychologists (that adhere to the scientific method) who question the scientific basis of the opinions of forensic psychologists. And there are definite problems with allowing such a flimsy science to exert such a high degree of influence in criminal court. There are many instances in which "expert testimony" in criminal cases is essentially scientifically unfounded but yet still weighs heavily on the court's decision. I think some of these cases, as well as the criticism of both the "science" and the influence of forensic psychology should be mentioned. I can gather some of these sources, and contribute to this section, how do others feel about this? Utaneus (talk) 06:13, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Limited In Scope
After reading this page, I think it is due some revisions. Despite the length of the article it misinforms at times. Starting with the introductory paragraph, I would suggest expanding the scope of the definition so that it is more inclusive of the forensic psych professional spectrum. Possibly a major undertaking, but a reworking of the language here is needed.Stewaj7 (talk) 23:08, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Merge from Criminal psych and Forensic psychotherapy
I think Criminal psychology and Forensic psychotherapy are better in this article with re-directs from them to this article. At the moment they are both in effect, stubs--Ziji 07:14, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, the reference on Forensic psychotherapy describes the practitioner as a psychiatrist, while a forensic psychologist is a psychologist. (There is a big difference). Also, a forensic psychologist does not specialize in Forensic psychotherapy. In fact, I am not sure what Forensic psychotherapy is as a specialty. What is specific about it that any psychotherapist dealing with offenders does not do?    -- Mattisse  19:25, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Criminal psychology seems to be a vague article about profiling which is something a variety of persons do, including nonpsychologists like FBI personal. It also talks about Michel Foucault, who is not a psychologist nor a mental health practitioner of any sort but a philosopher talking about general concepts related to crime and punishment. I am not sure what the point of the article is. -- Mattisse  19:36, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
 * The Criminal Psychology article has a number of problems which I have raised on the talk page.

Suggested merge not supported. Please see response below: Change to categorisation.Anterelic (talk) 02:41, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Change to Categorisation
I believe the problems discussed by User:Mattisse and User:Ziji above arise in part from the placement of Forensic Psychology as a lead category. Forensic Psychology, along with Forensic Psychotherapy, and Correctional_psychology (a lonely stub identified as drifting disconnectedly) may be categorised under Criminal Psychology. This latter category can subsume a lot of topics currently not covered, or covered but not connected into the Psychology Topics currently (e.g. recidivism and risk assessment). I would like this change to be considered (and hopefully supported) by others. There's no talk going on in the Psychology Portal categories, so I'm not exactly sure of the best place to take this. Thanks for any input! Anterelic (talk) 02:41, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Against merge with Forensic Psychiatry
All the reference citations are from forensic psychology sources. The article is about forensic psychology and nothing else. Please do not merge this article with another, or merge another article into this one. --Mattisse 23:22, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the first comment on this page, this should not be merged with Forensic Psychiatry, im currently studying forensic psychology and there are DEFINATELY distinct differences between the two. However i believe a 'See also' link would be more appropriate.

I too am a student in Forensic Psychology and would argue that although the fields are similar, they are moreso distinct and unique. As another responder wrote, training in each area is very different which leads to different conceptualizations of forensic issues and a different breadth of applicability and research. Forensic psychology is not only a clinical field, but also a research field. There are a number of forensic psychologists who spend a great deal of their time conducting empirical research, whereas this is much less common for forensic psychiatrists.

No, this should absolutely not be merged with Forensic Psychiatry. The two disciplines are closely related, as clinical psychology and psychiatry are, but two distinct fields. With very different training models and very different perspectives to investigation. There should be a See Also... linking to F. Psychiatry. PsychPhDgonnaB

To combine these areas would be to perpetuate the confusion between psychologists and psychiatrists. There are many significant differences between the fields and to combine them would be a loss of information.


 * I agree, they are two different things, such as clinical psychology and psychiatry. Who made the proposal to merge both articles? Clearly he or she doesn't know too much about either field...That said, this article needs a lot of work.  Raystorm 16:39, 22 April 2006 (UTC)


 * A lot of (unsigned) comments on this question in various places on the page, which I have brought together under one heading. The original suggestion appears to have been deleted at some point, however I can't see much point in searching through old versions given the apparent consensus.  If you disagree you might like to see if conflicting points of view have been removed previously.  Anterelic (talk) 02:54, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 15:22, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

This article may need to be rewritten ...
I recently added the following notice (tag, template) to the article: "This article may need to be rewritten to comply with Wikipedia's quality standards. You can help. The discussion page may contain suggestions. (December 2019)" I have made a few edits to improve the article, but it needs a lot of work. Will you help? If you are new to Wikipedia, the site has many well-written guides, tours, manuals, etc. to help you get started.

Let's discuss significant or controversial edits here. Also please feel free to ask questions here or contact me directly. I do not "own" this page (no one does), I'm simply offering assistance, particularly if you are a new editor. - Mark D Worthen PsyD  (talk)  (I am a man. The traditional male pronouns are fine.) 19:59, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

If you are new to Wikipedia ...
I asked above, "Will you help?", but I realized a lot of you are new to Wikipedia, including college students working on class assignments. Welcome! Here is a list of "getting started" resources if you're new: Main tutorial | Tutorials and introductions | Learning the ropes | Newcomer primer | Plain and simple | contributing to Wikipedia | getting started | Cheatsheet| where to ask questions or make comments | Help desk. - Mark D Worthen PsyD  (talk)  (I am a man. The traditional male pronouns are fine.) 20:08, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Overview of recent changes made by CassidyMoses
Hi all! I was assigned to work on this article for one of my classes this past semester. I want to give a brief overview of what I added/changed in the article, as well as some suggestions for others on how to continue to improve it. Below is a general list of changes/additions/removals I made:
 * Added information to the lead section. It is now much longer and gives an overview of what forensic psychology is/is used for
 * Created a section for history of forensic psychology, as well as included a subsection on forensic psychology in popular culture
 * Re-organized the content relating to what a forensic psychologist does. I created the section "roles of a forensic psychologist" with specific categories
 * Added a lot of content regarding roles of a psychologist
 * Created a section for types of forensic evaluations and added a lot of content to the information that was originally present in the article
 * Added sources to the subsection "Distinction between forensic and therapeutic evaluations"
 * Rewrote the section on ethics to minimize any biased, unrelated, or misplaced information
 * Created a section for notable research and added several sources

A few suggestions I would make for future editors:
 * The training and education section could be improved. It currently has no sources and could be expanded upon a lot
 * Reviewing sources to minimize duplicates and make sure the sources still exist. The original article had a lot of duplicate citation entries in the references section. Since portions of that version of the article are included in this new version of the article, there may still be some duplicate sources or links to pages that no longer exist
 * Continue adding to the notable research section

Hopefully this list is helpful for future editors/those who are monitoring this page! --CassidyMoses (talk) 05:25, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately the current class assignments are not picking up were the prior good work left off. However I have removed an old maintenance tag and upgraded the article evaluation to "C".--WriterArtistDC (talk) 14:47, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
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Popular culture section feels not encyclopedia-y
Specifically, the last paragraph: "Part of why forensic psychology is so popular is because of how it is presented. It's presented in a way that's fun, addictive and entertaining. It allows us to be a spectator and see how twisted people can be. In a sense, it's a window of how different people's brain works and how taking certain decisions like murder can shape the brain differently. Another way to think about it is a baseball game. People feel like they're apart of the game even though they are just watching.[7]" As far as I can find that is not a direct quote from the citation. I don't feel particularly qualified to remove or rewrite it though. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Irishancest (talk • contribs) 03:11, 2 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Agreed. The reference provided does not contain this text, so it cannot be attributed to a direct quote, and the tone is not encyclopaedic or neutral. I have removed it. Genericist (talk) 11:16, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Psychological Autopsy Section
The Psychological Autopy Section is outsized for this page (it has much more detail than other forensic psych things - many of which are much more common). This section also has zero sources cited. Putting this note to converse before making changes. ASUpsychlaw (talk) 00:37, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Notable Research Section and Further Readings Section
These sections have a lot in them that aren't particularly notable from either a historic or impact perspective (for the "notable research section") nor are the readings in the further readings section necessarily all good ones for breadth, depth, historical or contemporary importance. In addition, several sources are missing from each that ideally would be here. These section could use some work. ASUpsychlaw (talk) 04:53, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Psychology Capstone
— Assignment last updated by Psychologylearner1 (talk) 06:48, 2 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Love to hear this page is part of a Wiki Education assignment! My Advanced Forensic Psychology course at Arizona State University will also be working on this page (and other forensic psychology-related pages) as part of a Wiki Education assignment in Fall 2022. We look forward to working with you! ASUpsychlaw (talk) 16:01, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Risk Assessment Section
I am going to be working on expanding the Risk Assessment section of this article for a course assignment in Advanced Forensic Psychology this semester. Here is my working bibliography so far for making updates to this section. Let me know if there are any key sources I am missing!


 * Melton et al. (2018) Psychological Evaluations for the Courts: A Handbook for Mental Health Professionals and Lawyers
 * This is a textbook published by a reputable publisher, and it covers the topic of risk assessment in some depth.
 * Hanson & Morton-Bourgon (2009) "The Accuracy of Recidivism Risk Assessments for Sexual Offenders: A Meta-Analysis of 118 Prediction Studies"
 * This is an article in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, so it should be a reliable source. It is also a meta-analysis, so it is not a single research study (which the psych/health topics training warned against using).
 * Singh et al. (2018) Handbook of Recidivism Risk/Needs Assessment Tools
 * This is a book published by a reputable publisher, and it covers the types of risk assessment tools available in some depth.
 * Olver et al. (2019) "Offender Risk and Need Assessment" (chapter in The Wiley International Handbook of Correctional Psychology)
 * This is a chapter in a book published by a reputable publisher, so it should be a reliable source, and it covers the topic of risk assessment in some depth.

Ree73 (talk) 01:45, 8 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Thank you for taking on this challenging topic! Those look like good references, although there are undoubtedly more. Here's one:


 * Viljoen, J. L., Vargen, L. M., Cochrane, D. M., Jonnson, M. R., Goossens, I., & Monjazeb, S. (2021). Do structured risk assessments predict violent, any, and sexual offending better than unstructured judgment? An umbrella review. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 27(1), 79–97. https://doi.org/10.1037/law0000299


 * Finding all (or most) pertinent articles is not easy. Here are some resources to maximize returns on your literature searches.


 * ==== PubMed ====
 * Many psychologists neglect PubMed b/c it (actually MEDLINE) is a biomedical database, not a social science collection. However, it's best to search more than one database, and PubMed has a powerful search engine if you know how to use it, and many leading psychology and psychiatry journals are indexed.
 * PubMed User Guide (National Library of Medicine)
 * PubMed Search Tips (Johns Hopkins Medical School)
 * Build a Strategy Using the Advanced Search Builder (University of Otago)


 * ==== Google Scholar & PsycINFO ====
 * Search Tips for PsycINFO (University of Michigan Library Research Guides)
 * Literature search tips and tricks: Techniques for effectively using Google Scholar and PsycINFO (APA)


 * - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 20:44, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you! I appreciate the help. Ree73 (talk) 01:28, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Advanced Forensic Psychology
— Assignment last updated by KillerKlownzilla (talk) 18:27, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

this article gives a general overview of what forensic psychology is and the history behind it. It tells readers what the major requirements are and normally what people in this field do and the types of degrees they have in order to be successful in this career. The article was last edited on the 8th of this month and overall was a neutral article. Jahnaiyabonaparte (talk) 17:49, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Do we need a section on the evolving definition of forensic psychology?
I deleted "The evolving definition of forensic psychology" (diff), explaining that "we need to re-write this section. As it stands, it confuses more than it elucidates."

I believe we adequately address the contemporary definition of forensic psychology in the lead (although there's always room for improvement). If we want to address the evolving definition, I'm not sure the topic merits its own section. Perhaps discussing the topic in the history section will suffice. Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 17:56, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

Suggestions for edits/sections
Section for notable Forensic Psychologists and their contributions. Article mentions some but they do not stand out. Maybe we can re-frame the research portion this way.

Some facts need citations in the Training and Education section and in the Distinction between forensic and therapeutic evaluation subsection.

Expand the training and education section to include Master's and PhD programs. I have a source with some.

The salary section seems a bit out of place. Maybe move it to the Training and Education section?

I'd also like to edit for grammar. --MoonRabbit1992 (talk) 00:27, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Suggestions for edits/sections
- differentiate forensic psychology from criminal psychology - Make the definition more clear, is jumbling and confusing upon first read. - Better connection between the topic and the early development - work the key legal cases in elsewhere in the article?/make importance more clear - expand/make clear the idea of the topic in todays culture - addition of citations - give risk assessment its own heading/remove? --> rework organization Cbmicha (talk) 02:03, 30 January 2023 (UTC)cbmicha

Wiki Education assignment: Seminars in Forensic Science
— Assignment last updated by Zoemarie553 (talk) 02:40, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Psychology Capstone
— Assignment last updated by Rahneli (talk) 02:27, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Psychology Capstone
— Assignment last updated by Pmmuab77 (talk) 22:34, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Hello, do you think this article would be more helpful to the reader if a brief summary of the subtopics being discussed was also introduced in the lead?Jmk12 (talk) 20:02, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi! I believe a brief summary of the subtopics being discussed would be a good idea to add to this article! --JessicaWalsh687 (talk) 22:45, 26 January 2024 (UTC)