This is the definitive reference and text for both mental health and legal professionals. The authors offer a uniquely comprehensive discussion of the legal and clinical contexts of forensic assessment, along with best-practice guidelines for participating effectively and ethically in a wide range of criminal and civil proceedings. Presented are findings, instruments, and procedures related to criminal and civil competencies, civil commitment, sentencing, personal injury claims, antidiscrimination laws, child custody, juvenile justice, and more.

"Widely used by practitioners, researchers, and students--and now thoroughly revised with 70% new material--this is the most authoritative, comprehensive book on malingering and related response styles. Leading experts translate state-of-the-art research into clear, usable strategies for detecting deception in a wide range of psychological and psychiatric assessment contexts, including forensic settings. The book examines dissimulation across multiple domains: mental disorders, cognitive impairments, and medical complaints. It describes and critically evaluates evidence-based applications of multiscale inventories, other psychological measures, and specialized methods. Applications are discussed for specific populations, such as sex offenders, children and adolescents, and law enforcement personnel. Key Words/Subject Areas: malingering, deception, deceptive, feigning, dissimulation, feigned cognitive impairment, feigned conditions, defensiveness, response styles, response bias, impression management, false memories, forensic psychological assessments, forensic assessments, clinical assessments, forensic mental health, forensic psychological evaluations, forensic psychologists, forensic psychiatrists, psychological testing and assessment, detection strategies, expert testimony, expert witnesses, family law, child custody disputes, child protection, child welfare Audience: Forensic psychologists and psychiatrists; other mental health practitioners involved in interviewing and assessment, including clinical psychologists, social workers, psychiatrists, and counselors. Also of interest to legal professionals"--

Widely regarded as the standard reference in the field, this book provides essential tools for understanding and assessing malingering and other response styles in forensic and clinical contexts. An integrating theme is the systematic application of detection strategies as conceptually grounded, empirically validated methods that bridge different measures and populations. Special topics include considerations in working with children and youth. From leading practitioners and researchers, the volume reviews the scientific knowledge base and offers best-practice guidelines for maximizing the accuracy of psychological and psychiatric evaluations.

Evaluations of a defendant's competence to stand trial (CST) are probably the most frequently performed forensic evaluations, with estimates in the United States ranging from 60,000 to 70,000 annually. In order for CST evaluations to be considered thorough and accurate, examiners must assess for possible lack of cooperation, feigning, or malingering - the intentional production or gross exaggeration of false or grossly exaggerated physical or psychiatric symptoms, motivated by external incentives. Yet, there are accounts that CST examiners often do not assess for negative response bias, and even if they do nevertheless fail to identify a considerable number of examinees that do feign. Assessing Negative Response Bias in Competency to Stand Trial Evaluations provides readers with a comprehensive guide to assessing whether a defendant has feigned mental impairment during a competency to stand trial evaluation, or simply did not put forth his/her best effort. This book reviews the literature on assessing feigning and negative response bias, with particular focus on issues, tests, and data relevant to CST evaluations, and examines proposed criteria and statistical methods of determining and classifying assessment results. It introduces readers to aspects of the vibrant neuropsychological response style literature, an area many forensic psychologists appear to have overlooked. Additionally, it offers recommendations for research and policy regarding the parameters of CST assessment.

Given the vast amount of research related to behavioral assessment, it is difficult for clinicians to keep abreast of new developments. In recent years, there have been advances in assessment, case conceptualization, treatment planning, treatment strategies for specific disorders, and considerations of new ethical and legal issues. Keeping track of advances requires monitoring diverse resources limited to specific disorders, many of which are theoretical rather than practical, or that offer clinical advice without providing the evidence base for treatment recommendations. This handbook was created to fill this gap, summarizing critical information for adult behavioral assessment. The Clinician's Handbook of Adult Behavioral Assessment provides a single source for understanding new developments in this field, cutting across strategies, techniques, and disorders. Assessment strategies are presented in context with the research behind those strategies, along with discussions of clinical utility, and how assessment and conceptualization fit in with treatment planning. The volume is organized in three sections, beginning with general issues, followed by evaluations of specific disorders and problems, and closing with special issues. To ensure cross chapter consistency in the coverage of disorders, these chapters are formatted to contain an introduction, assessment strategies, research basis, clinical utility, conceptualization and treatment planning, a case study, and summary. Special issue coverage includes computerized assessment, evaluating older adults, behavioral neuropsychology, ethical-legal issues, work-related issues, and value change in adults with acquired disabilities. Suitable for beginning and established clinicians in practice, this handbook will provide a ready reference toward effective adult behavioral assessment.

The go-to resource for clinical and forensic practice has now been significantly revised with 85% new material, reflecting the tremendous growth of the field. Leading authorities synthesize the state of the science on symptom feigning in cognitive testing and present evidence-based recommendations for distinguishing between credible and noncredible performance. A wide range of performance validity tests (PVTs) and symptom validity tests (SVTs) are critically reviewed and guidelines provided for applying them across differing cognitive domains and medical, neurological, and psychiatric conditions. The book also covers validity testing in forensic settings and with particular populations, such as ethnic and linguistic minority group members. New to This Edition *Numerous new authors, a greatly expanded range of topics, and the latest data throughout. *"Clinical primer" chapter on how to select and interpret appropriate PVTs. *Chapters on methods for validity testing in visual–spatial, processing speed, and language domains and with cognitive screening instruments and personality inventories. *Chapter on methods for interpreting multiple PVTs in combination. *Chapters on additional populations (military personnel, children and adolescents) and clinical problems (dementia, somatoform/conversion disorder). *Chapters on research methods for validating PVTs, base rates of feigned mild traumatic brain injury, and more.

When Explorations in Criminal Psychopathology: Clinical Syndromes With Forensic Implications was first published in 1996, the purpose was, in part, to correct an imbalance in the field, specifically with regard to the coverage of the important topic of psychopathology and its relationship to crime. The second edition of this book continues to address the complex approach to this very specific and important aspect of human behavior. Emphasizing on psychopathology from a clinical phenomenological perspective, with legal issues and implications playing a secondary role, an impressive group of contributors explores various disorders that have significant forensic implications. Each deals with a specific disorder or pathological process in terms of its potential relevance to criminal forensic practice. Updated and expanded articles approach these complexities largely from a psychodynamic perspective that also addresses the biological, psychological and environmental aspects of behavior. The book is divided into three parts: Part I includes five different types of psychopathology that lead to distinct overt types of behavior. Part II provides discussions of various disorders of thought resulting in criminal conduct, but not disordered thinking indicative of a formal thought disorder per se. Part III concerns borderline and psychotic-like conditions as well as malingering and deception, which are important topics in forensic practice. This book meets a need in scientific literature as a significant resource for clinicians that are confronted with rare, unusual, or novel disorders whose potential implications have been less well studied and are therefore less apparent and familiar.