Starting the semester

My first week back to school and of the semester involved my final preparation for the Research Showcase that will take place this Wednesday at the Star. On Monday, I visited my mentor one last time before the showcase, which she will be attending, to gather all that I had prepared for my original work. She helped me prepare myself for potential questions that I may be asked and we discussed how I would answer them.

We also discussed the documentary that she lended to be about Kenneth Bianchi and the Hillside Strangler case of the 1970s. The film explored the struggles of the many forensic evaluators on the case who could not decipher Bianchi’s criminal responsibility. Some of the professionals used the Rorschach inkblots to justify their conclusions on his lack of sanity, while others used hypnosis. It is really incredible to study and recognize the major differences in technique used in forensic psychology only a few decades ago to what psychologists have today. Malingering was a definite issue on the issue of psychological evaluations, especially in a criminal case. Now that we have highly credible multi-scale inventories that provide us with objective, empirically based data to work with, the issue of malingering and deception is a much lower threat to the integrity of the justice system.