Forensic Psychology

Forensic psychology is an increasingly popular subset of psychology that broadly speaks to the intersection of psychology and the law. This broad view of forensic psychology encompasses legal and police psychology, some social psychology, and clinical and nonclinical psychological principles that are relevant to this intersection of psychology and law. This bibliography specifically focuses on clinical forensic psychology, the area of forensic psychology that deals directly with the assessment and treatment of those involved in the criminal, civil, and juvenile justice systems. As a result, the citations here do not reflect landmark legal cases, but rather emphasize historically relevant studies and works that have influenced the development of the practice of clinical forensic psychology and empirical articles that discuss important findings in each of the aspects of clinical forensic psychology that are outlined here. This field has grown rapidly in the past thirty years, and many of the sources discussed reflect upon this development and how this has influenced clinical practice. This bibliography contains a section with Textbooks and Handbooks with all other sections addressing Training Models and Graduate School, Assessment, Treatment, and Consultation, Expert Testimony and the Role of the Expert, Psychopathy, Violence Risk Assessment, Sexual Offenders, Civil Commitment, Adjudicative Competence, Insanity, Domestic Violence and Stalking, Juvenile Delinquency and Juvenile Justice, Child Custody Evaluations, Personal Injury and Discrimination in Civil Law, and a Miscellaneous category for some studies that don’t quite fit into these other categories.

Validity of Space Responses

Divorcing couples who require the intervention of the court system to resolve their child custody disputes usually exhibit intense anger and experience strong resentment. The Rorschach Inkblot Method (RIM) is one of the most commonly used tests in child custody evaluations, in which one crucial issue is affectivity and its regulation, and, specifically, negative emotions such as anger and resentment. White Space (S) is one of the Rorschach Comprehensive System (CS) variables usually taken into account to assess anger and resentment, but to date the construct validity of S responses for this purpose is far from established. Our study addresses this issue by exploring the association between S responses (coded on the basis of the following classifications: the CS, the Rorschach Performance Assessment System, and Rosso, Chiorri, and Denevi, 2015 ) and the motor, emotional, and cognitive components of aggression reported by clinicians in a sample of divorcing couples engaged in child custody litigation ( n = 85). Our findings support the hypothesis that Space fusion responses may be a marker of separation and emptiness anxiety, whereas no support is provided by this study for the hypothesis that Space reversal and Space integration responses are indicative of anger.