Forensic Assessment

Differences between Therapeutic and Forensic Assessment

Unlike therapeutic assessment, which occurs at the request of the patient, forensic assessment is commonly conducted at the bequest of the legal system. As such, forensic assessment is often not voluntarily sought by the person being evaluated and has more limited confidentiality than traditional therapeutic assessment. The person undergoing forensic assessment may resist the evaluation or may knowingly or unknowingly try to influence the assessment to further his or her legal situation. Attempts to feign mental illness or present one-self in a positive light are more common in forensic assessment than in traditional therapeutic assessment and should always be considered.

Traditional assessment is concerned primarily with the examinee's view of the problem or events. Although forensic assessment does pay attention to the examinee's perspective, it is more concerned with the accuracy of events than is traditional therapeutic assessment. Unlike therapeutic assessment, which casts the examiner in a supportive or helping role, the forensic evaluator's duty is to the legal fact finder, which may or may not assist the person being evaluated. In other words, the client in traditional therapeutic assessment is the person being evaluated, whereas in forensic assessment, the client is the legal fact finder.

Finally, the scope of the two types of assessment differs. Therapeutic assessment typically covers broad clinical issues such as diagnosis, personality, and treatment. Forensic assessment, in contrast, is solely determined by the legal question at hand and, as such, commonly concerns more narrowly defined issues or incidents than what is covered in traditional therapeutic assessment. Although an examinee's mental health and therapeutic needs may be discussed in forensic assessments, such discussions occur only in the context of the larger psycholegal referral question.

Training and Practice Guidelines

In most cases, forensic assessment is performed by mental health professionals who may or may not have had specialized forensic training. Recent years have seen a rapid increase in the teaching, training, and supervision of psychology graduate students, interns, and postdoctoral fellows. Numerous conferences and continuing education opportunities have proliferated as well. In the mid-1980s, the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP) began signifying psychologists who have advanced knowledge and competence in forensic psychology by the awarding of diplomate status, and in the early 1990s the American Psychological Association (APA) recognized forensic psychology as an APA specialty.

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