Autopsy Case Study

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An autopsy will determine the cause of death accident, homicide, suicide by examining the aspects of the death. The psychological aspects will evaluate behavior, thoughts, relationships and feelings. The main purpose of doing the psychological autopsy is to look at circumstances at and around the time of death and the details of the person’s life months before leading up to the death. The primary goal of any autopsy is to find out the how or why a person died. The results of the autopsy can potentially be beneficial to homicide case and insurance companies (Kurke & Scrivner, 2007). Doing a psychological autopsy, we look for four purposes. The first goal would to determine the mode of death. The mode of death and the means of death two …show more content…

In this report the psychologist should have an introduction, past history, victim ology, present problems and opinions. The introduction should say who was wanting the psychosocial autopsy, the records that had been viewed, the procedure used to do it, who was interviewed by the psychologist. The identifying information part it should have all of the information about the victim including name, date of birth, address, religion, relationship status, occupation, and everything relating to the victim (Kurke & Scrivner, 2007). In the next part it should be the problem presentation where the information about the death is observed (Kurke & Scrivner, 2007). Psychologist should include the details of the investigation, crime scene information, things that are known events that took place before death and the timeline of the death. In the past history section the psychologist will put what they have found on the victim’s life during their research. In the section of victim ology, psychologist will include information on the victim’s personal relationships, coping methods, hobbies, stress levels, substance abuse and dreams. The last section will have the psychologist expert opinion on the reason of the death of the …show more content…

Some people may stay to them self’s and away from other people, others need time to grieve, others turn to drugs to hide the pain. There are some people that will seek out support groups or even professional mental help to deal with their loss. The psychologist can refer them to support groups or a good mental health professional to talk with. The psychologist plays an important role in a psychological autopsy. The psychologist can answer many things while doing the psychological analysis. The psychologist can tell why the victim was at that place at that time, they can tell if the victim was responsible for their death or did they contribute to the events leading up to their death. The psychological autopsy is starting to become widely used as a tool to help in

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