Assignment: Psycholegal competency standards

Assignment: Psycholegal competency standards

Permalink: 

B. Provide your diagnostic impressions (based on the DSM-5) for this individual. In narrative form, please describe how the individual meets the diagnostic criteria for the disorder(s) chosen in addition to the differential diagnostic thought process that you used to reach your hypotheses. Be sure to include any additional (missing) information that is needed to either rule out or confirm your differential diagnoses.

Naturally, this diagnosis depends on the vignette. You can prepare for this by having a copy of the DSM-5 readily available. I do not know how someone could adequately answer this question without the DSM-5. Be sure to use the DSM-5 and not the DSM-IV.

Legal Theory and Application

The third question addresses offender and victim theories as well as personality theories that may be used to explain the behavior presented in the vignette.

A. Using information from the provided vignette, describe the background, current presentation, and behavior of the client from a perspective which takes into consideration theories of offender and/or victim psychology and personality/psychopathology theories to support your position.

Again, although you do not yet know the vignette, you can still lay the groundwork for offender and/or victim theories as well as a theory on personality.

For example, you could discuss the basic tenets of social learning theory regarding the various ways behaviors can be learned. Once you have the vignette, you can apply specifics to the vignette. You should also explore offender and/or victim theories and start to write down the basic tenets of the theory. Example would be differential association theory, strain theory, etc.

The next question asks you to define the three psycholegal standards of competency to stand trial, risk assessment and criminal responsibility.

B. Describe the psycholegal standards and/or definitions for each of the following: competence to stand trial, risk of dangerousness, and insanity.

Identify and describe one or more landmark case(s) for each standard (at least three cases total). Describe the elements or issues that a mental health professional usually focuses on when assessing a person’s adjudicative competence, risk and insanity, and any additional items that might be especially important to focus on in the provided vignette.

You can elaborate on each of these and cite relevant case law. You should discuss the standards of each, competency to stand trial, risk assessment and criminal responsibility, and cite case law for each of the three psycholegal standards. You can have this accomplished before the exam is released. Once the exam is released and you have the vignette, you can add to your discussion as to how the three standards apply to specific examples from the vignette.