Epistemic injustice, children and mental illness

The concept of epistemic (specifically testimonial) injustice is the latest philosophical tool with which to try to theorise what goes wrong when mental health service users are not listened to by clinicians, and what goes right when they are. Is the tool adequate to the task? It is argued that, to be applicable at all, the concept needs some adjustment so that being disbelieved as a result of prejudice is one of a family of alternative necessary conditions for its application, rather than a necessary condition all on its own. It is then argued that even once adjusted in this way, the concept does not fit well in the area where the biggest efforts have been made to apply it so far, namely the highly sensitive case of adult patients suffering from delusions. Indeed it does not serve the interests of service users struggling for recognition to try to apply it in this context, because there is so much more to being listened to than simply being believed. However, the concept is found to apply smoothly in many cases where the service users are children, for example, in relation to children’s testimony on the efficacy of treatment. It is suggested that further research would demonstrate the usefulness of the concept in adult cases of a similar kind.

Exploring political rupture through Jewish children’s diaries: Kindertransport children in France, 1938-1942

This article focuses on France as a refuge for unaccompanied Central European Jewish children on the eve of World War II. Contrary to the United Kingdom, which accepted 10,000 Jewish children through Kindertransport, only 350-450 children entered France. This article utilizes children’s diaries and organizational records to question how children perceived and recorded their displacement and resettlement in France, a country that would soon be at war, and then occupied, by Nazi Germany. By questioning how these events filtered into and transformed children’s lives, I argue that the shifting political environment led to profound transformations in these children’s daily lives long before their very existence was threatened by Nazi–Vichy deportation measures. Most children were cared for in collective children’s homes in the Paris region in which left-oriented educators established children’s republics. Yet the outbreak of war triggered a series of events in the homes that led to changes in pedagogical methods and new arrivals (and thus new conflicts). The Nazi occupation of France led to the children’s displacement to the Southern zone, their dispersal into new homes, and the reconfiguration of their networks. This analysis of children’s contemporaneous sources and the conditions under which they were produced places new emphasis on the epistemology of Kindertransport sources and thus contributes to larger theoretical discussions in Holocaust and Childhood studies on children’s testimony.

PSYCHOLOGICAL ESTIMATION OF THE CHILD’S TESTIMONY IN CRIMINAL PROCEEDING. FACTORS RELATING TO A NEGATIVE INFLUENCE ON THE ACCURACY AND COMPLETENESS OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES REPRODUCTION

The article describes the problem of assessing the testimony of a child about legally significant events as an eyewitness (participant) of which he appeared at each stage of the formation of his testimony (directly or indirectly reflecting certain facts, preserving and processing directly perceived or acquired by logical means, reproducing stored information). The main age patterns of the child’s mental activity (level of mental development in general and the level of development of intelligence, speech, and different types of memory in particular; individual propensity; victimhood) are analyzed, limiting its capabilities at the stages of perception of events and phenomena, as well as reproduction of perceived circumstances. Along with the abovementioned, external factors that can affect the content of the child’s testimony, including incorrectly formulated questions from the interrogator are noted. The boundaries of the competence of psychological examination in terms of assessing the testimony of the child are indicated. On the basis of expert experience in the use of special psychological knowledge in criminal cases involving a child, the tasks that fall within the competence of the forensic psychological examination are reviewed. The important role of competent selection of children’s testimony for the expert analysis of outgoing data is shown. In particular, the need to record his authentic statements is indicated. Key words: child, criminal proceedings, assessment of evidence, negative

Facilitating the Expression of Emotions by Alleged Victims of Child Abuse During Investigative Interviews Using the Revised NICHD Protocol

Children’s testimony is often critical to the initiation of legal proceedings in abuse cases. In forensic interviews, the expression of emotions can powerfully enhance both the quality of children’s statements and perceptions that their statements are coherent and credible. However, children rarely express their emotions when reporting abusive events. The Revised The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Protocol (RP) was designed to emphasize socioemotional communication during forensic interviews and thus should be associated with more extensive and diverse expressions of emotions by alleged victims of abuse. The present study focused on forensic interviews (178 using the Revised and 100 using the Standard NICHD Protocol) with victims of physical child abuse whose allegations were corroborated using independent evidence. Detailed content coding showed that the RP was associated with the expression of more different emotions, more expression of abuse-related emotions, and more expression of emotions related to the interview context. Emotional expressiveness was associated with increased informativeness, and the association between the type of protocol and informativeness was fully mediated by emotional expressiveness. These results suggest that the Revised Protocol facilitates the expression of emotions by alleged victims of abuse in a way that enhances the value of children’s testimony in multiple ways.