Category Archives: Professional Psychology

The new Specialty Guidelines for Forensic Psychology (APA, 2011)

The new SGFP have been final­ized by APLS (Div. 41 of APA). The Guidelines are avail­able at the fol­low­ing link http://goo.gl/usU0 The SGFP pro­vide guid­ance and stan­dards of prac­tice for foren­sic psy­chol­o­gists. They are worth care­ful study for the prac­ti­tioner wish­ing to do sound and eth­i­cal, i.e., high qual­ity, foren­sic work. The SGFP define the scope of …

April 15, 2012 – 12:08 pm | By Marvin W. Acklin, Ph.D. | Posted in Expert witness, Professional Psychology | Comments (0)

Forensic Clinician’s Toolbox I — CST Instruments published in Journal of Personality Assessment

My recent review in JPA got a nice boost from Ken Pope and Karen Franklin. Many thanks. A PDF copy of the arti­cle is avail­able online.

April 14, 2012 – 10:14 pm | By Marvin W. Acklin, Ph.D. | Posted in Assessment, Professional Psychology | Comments (0)

Forensic conundrum: Geriatric competency to stand trial evaluations

Does old age ren­der you incom­pe­tent? Incompetent elders have started show­ing up in increas­ing num­bers, in both civil (testamentary/contractual com­pe­tency, guardian­ship pro­ceed­ings) and crim­i­nal are­nas (com­pe­tency to stand trial). We have adopted what we con­sider a pow­er­ful new assess­ment approach to foren­sic neu­rocog­ni­tive assess­ments based on Pearson’s WAIS-IV-WMS-IV-ACS combo and started look­ing at the data. Table A.2 …

September 5, 2011 – 10:10 pm | By Marvin W. Acklin, Ph.D. | Posted in Assessment, Criminal law, Professional Psychology | Comments (0)

Clinical Report: Identification and Evaluation of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

This superb arti­cle sums up the infor­ma­tion com­pre­hen­sively. Available at the American Academy of Pediatrics web­site in pdf. http://tinyurl.com/cy4kbq6

August 16, 2011 – 9:28 am | By Marvin W. Acklin, Ph.D. | Posted in Assessment, Behavior, Criminal law, Expert witness, Family law, Professional Psychology | Comments (1)

Assessment Psychology: A fast evolving discipline and speciality.

The appli­ca­tion of psy­cho­log­i­cal and neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal test­ing to human prob­lems is a science-based dis­ci­pline which has exploded with the devel­op­ment of new knowl­edge, tools, tech­niques, and skills. Recognizing these devel­op­ments, the American Psychological Association rec­og­nizes three lev­els of com­pe­tence in pro­fes­sional psy­chol­ogy: gen­er­al­ist, pro­fi­ciency, and spe­cialty. Generalist train­ing would be con­sis­tent with a doc­tor­ate and …

August 15, 2011 – 11:42 am | By Marvin W. Acklin, Ph.D. | Posted in Assessment, Professional Psychology | Comments (0)

Is your psychological assessment specialist qualified?

Typically, assess­ment prob­lems are high stakes sit­u­a­tions, involv­ing some crit­i­cal life issue. Although many psy­chol­o­gists offer assess­ment ser­vices, most do not obtain advanced post-doctoral train­ing in assess­ment psy­chol­ogy. Those who have achieved advanced skill will be rec­og­nized by doc­u­mented recog­ni­tion. This would include board-certification by the American Board of Professional Psychology, American Board of Assessment …

August 15, 2011 – 11:38 am | By Marvin W. Acklin, Ph.D. | Posted in Assessment, Professional Psychology | Comments (0)

From Listserv to Blog

As the date of my last post will attest, I have been neg­li­gent in putting up new stuff. I have signed off the HPA list­serv. It is not a suit­able forum in any case, peo­ple seem to be initim­i­dated about express­ing their opin­ions in pub­lic, polit­i­cal sen­si­bil­i­ties get offended, and post­ing on the list­serve diverts …

August 1, 2011 – 9:06 pm | By Marvin W. Acklin, Ph.D. | Posted in Administration, Professional Psychology | Comments (0)

Gender Issues in Psychotherapy

The lat­est Psychotherapy (APA Div 29 jour­nal, March 2011) is an inter­est­ing spe­cial issue on evidence-based psy­chother­apy rela­tion­ships. Separate arti­cles address var­i­ous dimen­sions of psy­chother­apy includ­ing  alliance, empa­thy, pos­i­tive regard, con­gru­ence, conter-tertransference, etc. Each arti­cle fol­lows a fixed report­ing for­mat for the evi­dence base for the cat­e­gory, includ­ing “ther­a­pist vari­ables” and “patient fac­tors.” Gender as …

May 28, 2011 – 10:27 am | By Marvin W. Acklin, Ph.D. | Posted in Professional Psychology | Comments (0)

Psychology-a female-dominated profession?

Is psy­chol­ogy turn­ing into a female-dominated pro­fes­sion? A recent arti­cle in the New York Times  addresses trends in the gen­der makeup of pro­fes­sional psy­chol­ogy. In the Health sec­tion of the May 22, 2011, edi­tion the arti­cle “Need Therapy? A Good Man is Hard to Find,” raises the issue that males have “van­ished” from psy­chol­ogy, that their num­bers are …

May 28, 2011 – 10:03 am | By Marvin W. Acklin, Ph.D. | Posted in Professional Psychology | Comments (0)

United States v. Olhovsky, 562 F.3d530 (3rd Cir. 2009): Treating clinicians vs. expert witnesses

Interesting court deci­sion reviewed in the lat­est Journal of the American Academyc of Pyschiatry and the Law (39, 1, 2011, pp. 119–120). The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that not sub­poe­naing the treat­ing psy­chol­o­gist at sen­tenc­ing was reversible error. The treat­ing psy­chol­o­gist is a fact, not expert wit­ness. “The case illus­trates the weight that …

May 6, 2011 – 7:41 am | By Marvin W. Acklin, Ph.D. | Posted in Expert witness, Law, Professional Psychology | Comments (0)