Evaluation of child witnesses for confrontation by criminal defendants.

States have passed legislation governing the procedures by which children may testify in cases of child abuse. In Maryland v. Craig (1990), the US Supreme Court reviewed the constitutionality of these procedures. As a result, psychologists may be asked to perform evaluations regarding the potential trauma a child faces in confronting a defendant in a criminal case. Specifically, opinions of psychologists may be sought as to the potential trauma a child may endure as a result of a face-to-face confrontation with a defendant. Research relevant to this assessment is reviewed, and it is suggested that psychologists may be of most help in preparing children to testify. Careful attention should be given to ethical and legal issues, and psychologists should be careful not to overstep the limits of their expertise. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"To eat or be eaten: Two complementary compensatory solutions to premature separation in 'The Three Little Pigs' ": Erratum.

Reports an error in the original article by A. Blum (Psychoanalytic Psychology, 1994[Sum], Vol 11[3], 375–381). On page 378, the reference to Khan and Masud (1963/1974) should refer instead to Khan (1963/1974). On page 381, the full bibliographic reference should be corrected. (The following abstract of this article originally appeared in record 1995-04825-001.) The fairy tale "The Three Little Pigs' is looked at through a psychoanalytic lens. It is suggested that each of the 3 pigs is dealing with the consequences of a disruption in the mother–child relationship (e.g., impingements in the holding environment, failures in the good-enough mother, breaches in the protective shield, or some failure in the mother's role vis a vis the developing separating/individuating child). The 1st 2 pigs manifest their fragility and lack of cohesiveness, perpetually acting on their primitive wishes, such as fusion, devouring, and/or higher level dependency wishes. On the other hand, the 3rd pig hides his fragility by erecting rigid barriers between himself and the world, defending against the dangerous wishes and maintaining an illusory self-sufficiency. These 2 different character structures represent complementary, compensatory solutions to premature separation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Considerations for experts in assessing the credibility of recovered memories of child sexual abuse: The importance of maintaining a case-specific focus.

In this article, the authors argue that a variety of psychological factors stand in the way of providing expert advice to the courts in terms of assessing the credibility of a complainant's account of sexual abuse when there is a significant delay in reporting. These include difficulties in assessing (a) the complainant's account of how he or she claims to have remembered or forgotten the abuse, (b) whether (and how) the claim of abuse originated within a therapeutic setting, and (c) the difficulty of generalizing from empirical evidence. It is argued that all of these issues can be more easily avoided if experts maintain a case-specific focus. In this article, the authors review both the psychological and legal controversies surrounding the false-recovered memory debate, discuss how courts approach the admissibility and use of recovered memory testimony, and conclude that expert witnesses should carefully consider the above points before drawing general conclusions from the literature and applying them to individual cases. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Clinical assessment of children in child protection cases: An empirical analysis.

Evaluations of children exposed to abuse or neglect are often sought from psychologists and other clinicians. Social service and juvenile court professionals need reliable, objective, and relevant assessments to help in their determination of what will best serve the needs of the minor children in such situations. The adequacy and usefulness of these types of evaluations have not been studied, but such study is needed. To that end, we systematically examined the content of 207 completed evaluations of children involved in one urban juvenile court system. The results show us some areas where changes in practice and training are needed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)