Date of Award
Winter 3-21-2015
Document Type
Doctoral Research Paper
Degree Name
Psy.D. in Clinical Psychology
Organizational Unit
Graduate School of Professional Psychology
First Advisor
Michael Karson
Second Advisor
Jamie Shapiro
Third Advisor
Nancy Gary
Copyright Statement / License for Reuse
All Rights Reserved.
Keywords
Acceptance and commitment therapy, Training manual, Concussions, Psychological flexibility, Forensic psychological report, Reprot-writing
Abstract
A forensic report is the primary work product of a forensic psychologist. The aim of a forensic report is to inform and influence the court. Unlike a clinical report, a forensic report influences the outcome of a legal conflict. This means that greater care must be taken in writing the report. The following errors (Grisso, 2010) were used to discuss best practices in forensic report writing: failure to answer the referral question, organization problems, language problems, mixed data and interpretation, inclusion of irrelevant data, over-reliance on a single source of data, improper psychological test use, failure to consider alternative hypotheses, and opinions without sufficient explanation. The purpose of this paper is to provide in one place all the information needed to improve forensic report writing, and to help the reader apply the literature using specific examples. Redacted report samples were collected from psychologists, graduate psychology trainees, teaching assistant experience, and clinical work. Identified errors in these samples were then corrected using the recommendations in the literature. Geared toward graduate psychology trainees, each section should serve both as a tutorial and as a brief checklist to help the reader avoid common pitfalls and assist in promoting better forensic report writing.
Copyright Date
2-6-2015
Publication Statement
Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.
Rights Holder
Meghan E. Brannick
Provenance
Received from author
File Format
application/pdf
Language
English (eng)
Extent
53 pgs
File Size
352 KB
Recommended Citation
Brannick, Meghan E., "Guidelines for Forensic Report Writing: Helping Trainees Understand Common Pitfalls to Improve Reports" (2015). Graduate School of Professional Psychology: Doctoral Papers and Masters Projects. 63.
https://digitalcommons.du.edu/capstone_masters/63