Psychological Injuries: Forensic Assessment, Treatment, and LawHuman emotional suffering has been studied for centuries, but the significance of psychological injuries within legal contexts has only recently been recognized. As the public becomes increasingly aware of the ways in which mental health affects physical - and financial - well-being, psychological injuries comprise a rapidly growing set of personal injury insurance claims. Although the diverse range of problems that people claim to suffer from are serious and often genuine, the largely subjective and unobservable nature of psychological conditions has led to much skepticism about the authenticity of psychological injury claims. Improved assessment methods and research on the economic and physical health consequences of psychological distress has resulted in exponential growth in the litigation related to such conditions. Integrating the history of psychological injuries both from legal and mental health perspectives, this book offers compelling discussions of relevant statutory and case law. Focussing especially on posttraumatic stress disorder, it addresses the current status and empirical limitations of forensic assessments of psychological injuries and alerts readers to common vulnerabilities in expert evidence from mental health professionals. In addition, it also uses the latest empirical research to provide the best forensic methods for assessing both clinical conditions such as posttraumatic stress disorder and for alternative explanations such as malingering. The authors offer state-of-the-art information on early intervention, psychological therapies, and pharmaceutical treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder and stimulating suggestions for further research into this complex phenomenon. A comprehensive guide to psychological injuries, this book will be an indispensable resource for all mental health practitioners, researchers, and legal professionals who work with psychological injuries. |
Contents
3 | |
2 Legal Contexts and Law Related to Psychological Injuries | 22 |
3 General Assessment Issues with Psychological Injuries | 49 |
4 Detecting Exaggeration and Malingering in Psychological Injury Claims | 76 |
5 Common Vulnerabilities in Psychological Evidence | 113 |
6 Gender Trauma and Distress | 142 |
7 Ethnocultural Minorities | 178 |
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Common terms and phrases
abuse African American American Psychiatric Association anxiety disorders assessors base rate behavior Blanchard Breslau claimants claims clinical clinicians cognitive comorbid compensation courts criteria for PTSD Criterion cultural cutoff score develop PTSD diagnoses diagnostic interviews disability DSM-IV EMDR emotional distress ethnic ethnocultural evaluation evidence exaggeration experience Fake Bad fear female forensic assessments gender differences heuristics impact individuals Inpatients Mixed jurisdictions Kessler lifetime literature litigation malingering measures minority motor vehicle accident MVA survivors negative Norris panic disorder personal injury physical injury plaintiff population posttraumatic stress disorder potential predictive preexisting prevalence of PTSD problems psychological distress psychological injuries PTSD symptoms rape relevant reliability reported response retrospective memory sample self-report sexual assault sexual harassment social specific status studies suffer suggest therapy tort trauma exposure trauma survivors traumatic brain injury traumatic event traumatic stressor treatment validity scales veterans victims violence women
Popular passages
Page 271 - Breslau, N., Davis, GC, & Schultz, LR (2003). Posttraumatic stress disorder and the incidence of nicotine, alcohol, and other drug disorders in persons who have experienced trauma. Archives of General Psychiatry, 60, 289-294.
Page 288 - Kubany, ES, Hill, EE, & Owens, JA (2003). Cognitive trauma therapy for battered women with PTSD: Preliminary findings. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 16(1), 81-91.