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The Use of Psychological Formulation (Phase 3: Application to Treatment…
The Use of Psychological Formulation
Psychological Formulation = form of diagnosis - aims to explain the causes of a person's difficulties by constructing an individual summary or story of a person's life
Forensic psychologists are concerned with the assessment & treatment of offending behaviour
Phase 1: Office Analysis
Analyse the offence/offences to gain insight into offender's motivations
Difficult = could be many complex reasons why an offender turned to crime
Identifying the reasons why the offence happened will allow the forensic psychologist to assess the risk of reoffending, & what possible causes can be removed or changed to reduce the risk of reoffending
Phase 2: Understanding the function of offending
Offence analysis is useful as it often reveals the function of offending - that is, what purpose it serves for the individual
For offenders, criminal behaviour may be similar to that of an addiction, fulfilling a craving or need (Hodge et al 2011)
e.g. rapist may compensate for their own feelings of worthlessness by exercising power over their victims
Not to excuse behaviour, but to understand what compels them to do it
Phase 3: Application to Treatment
Psychological formulation has its roots in the field of mental health treatment, & there may be overlap, as offenders may also have mental health problems
Important end goal of psychological formulation is to establish some form of intervention for the offender based on the conclusions drawn
Rehabilitative programme that's recommended should reflect how the offending started in the 1st place, risk of reoffending, & how likely offender is to stick with the programme - their level of motivation
Evaluation
Strength
Provide insight into particularly complex cases of offending
Business of psychological formulation brings together the work of many agencies & professionals within the criminal justice system, e.g. probation service, police as well as psychologists
Competing Argument
May be practical problem when trying to make sense of wealth of info that's made available
Some evidence gained about the offender from different sources may be contradictory
Means no obvious rehabilitative programme that suggests itself, & may be difficult for psychologist to work into clear & structured formulation
May be sources of bias within the process
All info gathered through clinical interviews with the offender
Offender's retrospective recall of events in their life may be flawed & unreliable