Forensic Psychiatrist

“It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgement.” – Sherlock Holmes. Around the 1920’s, forensic psychologists have had trouble gaining the respect from others within the court system, even psychiatrists (Wolffram, 2015). For years, even decades, the court would use forensic psychiatrists instead, but there was always an element missing within the trials when it would come to the evidence. Psychiatrists help with figuring out the emotional state of the offender in the court. They have no way of knowing how to interpret the results. So, what is Forensic Psychology? Now, a narrow definition for Forensic Psychology is the concentration of clinical specialties used for the legal court system

Forensic psychology brings a micro-analysis approach to how criminals think, but does it bring value to criminal cases? One of the most well-known forensic psychologist, William Stern, shaped a way of showing the value within this branch of psychology (Wolffram, 2015). The year was 1920. The location, Germany. There began a court dispute between psychiatrists and forensic psychologists (Wolffram, 2015). Psychiatrists claimed that forensic psychology was written by practitioners who were lacking in both depth and the ability to perpetuate a series of errors, in the terms of European contributions to the field (Wolffram, 2015). Stern believed that his focus should solely be based on the psychology of testimony. This showed that he would ignore the work of jurists and psychiatrists that occurred 20 years prior. This dispute soon led to the psychologist vs. psychiatrist over the

Such skills would be: interviewing, strong verbal skills, report writings, and be able to perform clinical assessments. They also perform child evaluation assessments, child custody evaluations, counseling victims of crimes, and notifying deaths. There are far more skills a forensic psychologist must possess, but these are just a few that should be covered. These psychologists must use these skills on a daily basis such as in: investigations, consultations, clinical assessments, to witnessing in courtroom investigations. Students in forensic programs receive training within clinical psychology, and focus on the issues through coursework and practicum and their internship experiences (Elntib, 2010). And what is very interesting about this branch of psychology, is that someone can simply get their undergraduate when becoming a forensic psychologist (Najdowski, 2015). This course is rated “superior” by 90 to 93% of the students going through the course (Najdowski, 2015). Studies have shown that forensic psychologists have become more sociable in their occupation, that they believe they can practice more accurately (Elntib, 2010). One of the many roadblocks psychologists faced in the trial, psychiatrists vs. psychologists, was that psychiatrists believe that psychologists begin to underestimate the occurrence and ruthlessness within the influences