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Personal Construct Perspectives on Forensic Psychology

NCJ Number
213479
Editor(s)
James Horley
Date Published
2003
Length
223 pages
Annotation
This book presents a series of chapters detailing personal construct perspectives on forensic psychology.
Abstract
Researcher George Kelly (1955) developed a theoretical perspective in which individuals develop a “personal construct system,” that provides an understanding of the world around them. Individuals use this construct system to anticipate the responses of others and make sense of events and interactions. Personal construct theory (PCT) can help explain criminal behavior and can lend itself to effective therapeutic treatment techniques. Following a discussion of the PCT perspective in the preface, chapter 1 examines how a PCT approach would account for offending behavior and outlines a PCT-based therapeutic approach. Chapter 2 illustrates how PCT can explain violent offending and provides a strategy for assessing and treating violent offenders. From this perspective, there are several pathways to violence, each of which involves the offender’s personal perspective and cognitions. The Life Events Repertory Grid technique is introduced as a method of understanding an offender’s construct systems, which are then used to guide treatment. Chapter 3 presents a review of PCT-informed research on sexual offenders, including their assessment and treatment. Chapter 4 reviews the research on mental illness and personality disorder that has emerged from the PCT perspective and explores how to best understand and treat the criminal behavior of mentally disordered offenders. A PCT approach to mental illness calls on therapists to understand the perspective of the mentally disordered individual, contending that the construct systems used to make sense of the world are disordered among those suffering mental illness. Chapter 5 examines police officer stress from a PCT perspective, while chapter 6 presents a strategy for delivering community-based cognitive-behavioral treatment to offenders, particularly sexual offenders. Chapter 7 explores the types of treatment, treatment efficacy, and special issues regarding the psychological treatment of offenders confined to forensic institutions. Name index, subject index, references

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