Forensic Psychology For Dummies (86 page)

Talking with people: Interview protocols

Sometimes the assessment takes the form of talking to the person to be assessed and listening carefully to their account of themselves and their experiences. Such interviews are more than an informal chat although, even if done properly, the experience can feel like that to the person being interviewed. These interviews are usually based on a standard framework that’s often called a
protocol,
which can be thought of as a fixed agenda for the meeting with the client.

The protocol varies according to the purpose of the assessment, for example whether the person is being assessed for competence to stand trial or risk of future offending (as I discuss in Chapter 11), but in general the following issues are explored:

Early upbringing and family relationships.

Education and educational achievement.

Personal relationships, especially any intimate relationships.

Work experience.

Offending history.

Any medical or psychiatric history of relevance.

Much of the gleaned information relies on a personal account from the interviewee, which is open to bias and can be self-serving, especially if the answers are directly relevant to the charges against a defendant. The possibility of malingering also exists (something I cover in Chapter 10). The forensic psychologist therefore tries to validate the related information against any available records, such as medical, prison or earlier police reports. In serious cases, the psychologist may also interview the defendant’s family and associates. They, of course, function as essential informants if the focus of the interview is deceased (such as when determining the cause of an apparent suicide), a procedure known as a
psychological autopsy
(turn to Chapter 11 for more info on this process).

As well as the verbal answers, the psychologist also carefully observes the way the respondent behaves in the interview, because doing so can reveal something of the person’s way of dealing with other people (and offer indicators of deception as I mention in Chapter 5).

The open nature of the interview is open to distortion by an offender wanting to hide personal aspects, or to bias by the interviewer in interpreting what’s said. For this reason, many psychologists prefer to use more structured procedures such as the ones I discuss in the following three sections.

Saying what you see: Projective techniques

Projective
techniques have their origins in Freudian ideas of the unconscious and consist of presenting ambiguous images for the client to interpret. The idea is that when people interpret such images they ‘project’ onto it their unconscious desires and feelings, and so reveal aspects of themselves that they may be trying to hide or are even unaware of.

The best known projective test is the Rorschach inkblot test: a standard set of symmetrical smudges, initially produced by folding an inkblot into a piece of paper. Respondents have to describe what they see in the ambiguous image. Some of the blots are monochrome, others coloured. The psychologist carefully records everything that’s said. This record is analysed by considering which part of the blot was mentioned, any themes in what the respondent described seeing, and any references to colours or movement in the image.