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Assessment: Violence (general, sexual, and domestic).
Mental status
Traumatization
Therapy: Violent offenders and sexual offenders.
Anger Management
Trauma Victims
Coerced Confessions
A unique area of work is cases of coerced confession. In these cases, either unqualified therapists, or investigators (police or private) have used extensive psychological manipulation to coerce individuals to confess to crimes that they did not actually commit. As a result of the psychological assessment, the charges were either dropped, or the individual was acquitted.
There are several characteristics that make a person more susceptible to
being coerced into a confession. These include:
- High anxiety
- Low intelligence
- Very fearful of, or deferential to, authority figures
- Weak social supports
- Poor reality testing, possibility of thought disorder
- Younger age.
These and other characteristics of the person, and the interrogation situation, have to be assessed with a comprehensive psychological assessment. This assessment utilizes both clinical interview, and objective psychological testing, to corroborate the findings as to whether the confession was coerced or not. Please contact me for further consultation or details.
