Psychologists as Expert Witnesses

Psychologists as Expert Witnesses

Only Qualified Forensic Psychologists Should Be
Used as Expert Witnesses in Legal Proceedings.

But what does ‘Forensic’ and ‘Qualified’ Really Mean?
Are you aware that not all psychologists currently appearing as

expert witnesses in courts and tribunals in Australia are
appropriately qualified forensic psychologists?

How much do you appreciate the differences between

specialties in psychology?

What is your expert witness’s professional background?
What is your understanding of current guidelines, benchmarks

and standards amongst psychologists?

Forensic psychology lost in transition: what happened?

Let me introduce you to the world of
psychology and its fallacies.

www.theforensicmindconsultancy.com.au
[email protected]

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Misconceptions of Psychologists as Expert Witnesses

“No one will deny that the law should in some way effectively use
expert knowledge wherever it will aid in settling disputes. The only
question is as to how to do it best”.1

Psychologists are involved as expert witnesses in Australian court
proceedings, both for civil and criminal matters, to assist the court with
explanations on human behaviour and mental processes related to
offending behaviour. More specifically:

“Forensic psychological evaluations entail psychological
assessments for the purpose of assisting a court tribunal or other
tribunal to determine facts, arbitrate disputes or make other forms
of judicial or quasi-judicial decisions”.2

One would assume that in order to become expert witnesses, psychologists
should be appropriately qualified in their area of specialty and trained in
court proceedings; however, this is often not the case.

Many psychologists currently involved in the judicial system have no
appropriate specialist training, and they are not familiar with the judicial
system other than the exposure they have had through their referrals.

Why has this happened? Until 2010 the psychology field in Australia wasn’t
regulated adequately to generate consistent standards, guidelines and
boundaries between different specialties. This has led psychologists,
knowingly or unknowingly, to misrepresent themselves and their expertise.

Legal representatives rely on the psychologist bona fide when they are
seeking forensic psychological evaluations and the appropriate expert. The
onus of assessing whether the referral is appropriate and pertinent to one’s
expertise is on the psychologist, not the legal representative.

However, because of a lack of specific boundaries and guidelines within
psychological specialties, and the appealing lucrative aspect of working as
an ‘expert’ within the legal arena, the appropriateness of a referral is often
overlooked.

This has led many non-forensic trained psychologists, like generalist
psychologists and other highly skilled but inappropriately qualified
psychologists, to work within the legal arena and deliver services that are
outside their expertise. With this in mind, these experts are failing their duty
as expert witnesses.

Not surprisingly, this has causednumerous misconceptions within the legal
community regarding psychologists and their specialist skills and
capabilities:

· There is no difference between psychological specialties

· “Any” psychologist has knowledge of the court system and possess the
skills required to undertake a legally defensible assessment and write a
legally defensible report (expert testimony)

1 Judge Leonard Hand (1900) cited in Justice Wood, “Expert Witness – the New Era” Conference Paper (June 2001), para 1
2 College Course Approval Guidelines for Postgraduate Specialist Courses (2010) –
http://www.psychology.org.au/academic/course-approval/

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· “Any” psychologist is capable of expressing opinions in legal
proceedings

· Psychologists add little value to court proceedings

Have these misconceptions posed a problem to legal representatives and
the judicial system?

Indeed they have. Choosing the right psychologist is vital not only for
making sure that the expert evidence will genuinely be of assistance to the
court and not merely reiterating the facts in question by using complicated
jargon (psychological terminology), but to also ensure the recovery of the
cost involved in requesting and obtaining the expert evidence.

Choosing the Right Psychologist as an Expert Witness

Onlyqualified forensic psychologists have the skills and knowledge of the
criminal justice system to be able to comply with the paramount duties of
psychologists involved as expert witnesses.

The aim of the forensic psychologist is to provide an unbiased, legally
defensible psychological testimony, which is aimed at ‘educating’ the
court about psychological phenomena that are outside their knowledge
and expertise and provide a formulation of the offending behaviour and/or
the impact of the offending behaviour upon a victim in ‘plain English’.

As Allan (2010) stated in an article published in the InPsych Journal “whilst it
may appear to the uninformed that the knowledge and skills of generalist
psychologists are sufficient to undertake these activities, this is not the
case”.3

What is a forensic psychologist?

A forensic psychologist is a psychologist who has completed a recognised
postgraduate degree in forensic psychology along with two years
supervision practice:

· Qualified psychologist with full registration

· Completed a postgraduate degree (Master or Doctorate) in
Forensic Psychology

· Completed 1,000 hours of direct practical work experience with
forensic clientele, in forensic settings

· Completed training in court proceedings, reading and reviewing
of legal documents; training in Legislation and Acts and the
structure of the Australian judicial system; extensive training in
forensic psychological evaluation techniques and
psychotherapiesfor forensic clientele.

Please refer to Appendix One for a summary of the development of forensic
psychology.

3 Allan, A., & Davis, M. (2010), Psychologists as Expert Witness in Courts and Tribunals, InPsych -
http://www.psychology.org.au/publications/inpsych/2010/august/allan/

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Key Point: forensic psychologists are the only psychologists who have
formal postgraduate training in psychological matters relevant to the
judicial system and are trained to be expert witnesses in civil and
criminal proceedings.

Why Misconceptions of Psychological Expert Witnesses Have

Occurred

The real problem faced when looking for forensic psychologists is that it is

not as easy as one might think to find a genuinely qualified specialist.

The title of ‘forensic’ might in fact misrepresent the referrer as to what
expertise and training the professional might have.

I would be kidding myself if I was charged with a sexual offence and
expect a tax lawyer, for instance, to represent me. I would reasonably
assume the tax lawyer would refer me to an appropriate lawyer who
specialises in sexual offences. However, this often does not happen within
the psychology profession.

Thankfully both the Australian Psychological Society (APS) 4 and the
Psychology Board of Australia5 have recently worked closely together to
increase the standards of psychology in Australia, define competencies for
each specialty currently recognised by the APS and increase the
benchmark for registration. They are also currently developing guidelines for
each specialty.

How can psychologists be called or recognised as forensic psychologists
without appropriate training?

There are two primary factors that have allowed psychologists to call
themselves forensic psychologists, despite not having formal postgraduate
qualifications:

1. Endorsement by the Psychology Board of Australia
2. Grandfathering of Psychologists

1. Endorsement by the Psychology Board of Australia

On 1st July 2010 every psychologist registered in their state or territory
automatically transitioned to the national Board, the Psychology Board of
Australia, and acquired the title of ‘Psychologist with General registration’.
This was the result of AHPRA6’s decision not to recognise specialties within
psychology: “… acknowledged that specialities in psychology are less well
established than in other professionals such as medicine and dentistry…”.7

This change provoked major conflict within the psychology profession,
which is to some degree still on-going today. This change basically grouped
all psychologists into one general division, without taking into consideration
different levels of educational training (e.g. generalist training, specialist

4 Australian Psychological Society (APS) is “the professional association for psychologists in Australia” -
http://www.psychology.org.au/AboutUs/
5 Psychology Board of Australia is “the National Board for the psychology profession that is established under s.31 of the
National Law” - http://www.psychologyboard.gov.au/
6 The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) is “the organisation responsible for the implementation of the
National Registration and Accreditation Scheme across Australia” - http://www.ahpra.gov.au/About-AHPRA/Who-We-
Are.aspx
7Supra n 6

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Masters and Doctorate training and so forth).

Professionals who made a commitment throughout their formative and/or
professional years to specialise in one particular area within psychology,
which required at least a level of Masters degree, witnessed their years of
studies as well as the considerable financial cost involved in these trainings
disappear.

Quite rightly, specialist psychologists, including myself, fought against this
change, and ultimately the Psychology Board of Australia decided to
recognise areas of practice endorsement as opposed to recognising
specialist areas for psychologists who completed a specialist postgraduate
degree.

Guidelines developed by the Board to regulate endorsement

In order to regulate endorsement, the Boardstipulated the following as
guidelines:

“The Board is aware of the need to ensure that a person applying
for an endorsement has adequate training and experience in the
area in which he or she wishes to practice … sets out the
minimum qualification and supervision requirements necessary to
be eligible for an endorsement, which are:

a) An accredited Doctorate in one of the approved areas
of practice and at least one year of approved, supervised, full-
time equivalent practice with a Board approved supervisor; or

b) An accredited Masters in one of the approved areas of
practice and a minimum of two years of approved, supervised,
full-time equivalent practice with a Board approved supervisor; or

c) Another qualification that, in the Board’s opinion, is
substantially equivalent to (a) or (b)”.8

By establishing the above requirements, especially A and B, the Board
aimed at ensuring that only those professionals who completed a specialist
postgraduate degree received an endorsement of that area of specialty.

Based on the latter, the judicial system is led to believe that professionals
with an endorsement in the area of forensic psychology would have the
pre-requisites for such endorsement, which is comprised of a postgraduate
degree in forensic psychology.

Right?Wrong. According to requirement C, in fact, any psychologist who
has ‘another qualification … substantially equivalent’ to the specialist one
can be endorsed without actually having the specialist training. This
ultimately means that someone who has completed a Masters in clinical
psychology or organisational psychologycan be endorsed as forensic
psychologist, for example.

You might think that there is nothing wrong with that. However, each
specialty within psychology, although sharing what can be seen to the
uninformed as similar skills and knowledge, has very different sets of skills

8 Guidelines on areas of practice endorsement by the Australian Board of Psychology -
http://www.psychologyboard.gov.au/Endorsement/Codes-Guidelines-Policies.aspx

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and knowledge which are developed and mastered over years of specific
training and professional development.

Food for thought: Although the Board will evaluate each applicant on a
case-by-case basis when they apply for endorsement under Criterion C to
assess whether his/her formal training is ‘substantially equivalent’ to the
forensic psychology training, what needs to be noted is that each specialist
training is different and unique, as previously mentioned. My question
therefore is: how can two specialist training courses be equivalent if they
are meant to be different in the first place? Aren’t ‘different’ and
‘equivalent’ mutually exclusive?

Key Point: endorsement in the area of forensic psychology does not
necessarily imply that the psychologist has qualified training in the area
of forensic psychology.

Different specialisations within psychology

The fundamental idea of having different specialisations within psychology,
and the basis of ‘our fight’ against the initial recommendation of one big
general psychology group by the Board was the belief that specialist
psychologists do not have the same skills and complete similar training
across specialties. The application of psychological skills in each area is very
distinctive and pertinent to that area alone.

Otherwise why did we fight and still, to date, are fighting for specialties to
be recognised by the Board? Or even bother to study different specialist
postgraduate degrees (e.g. clinical vs organizational psychology)?

Some psychologists would argue that ‘all’ trainings are the same, whether
we study clinical or forensic psychology, or whether we do four years of
general psychology or six years of specialist training or so forth. These
psychologists would passionately argue that there are no differences
between psychological trainings.

One can understand the rationale for their argument when we reflect that
more than 80% of registered psychologists in Australia are ‘generalist
psychologists’, which means they have only received four years of university
training and have mostly acquired their skills via experience in the field (no
specialist postgraduate training).

Some psychologists may argue that any specialist training is the same as
long as it is a postgraduate degree as it allows them to freely move
between specialities according to demand and profitability. However, it is
very difficult for a leopard to change its spots!

However, if these professionals argue these sorts of reasoning, to me, it is
evident they have not understood their role as expert witnesses in court
and/or fail to consider the ethical repercussions their practice has on the
judicial system and the people involved.

Differences in postgraduate training courses

To clarify specialist skills and competencies and to address misconceptions
and unspoken problematic issues amongst specialties, the APS developed

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and released a set of guidelines9in December 2010 for each of the nine
specialties recognised within psychology by the APS and represented by
the Society’s Colleges (clinical neuropsychology, clinical, community,
counselling, educational & development, forensic, health, organisational,
and sport & exercise)10.

These guidelines are meant to regulate postgraduate training for each
discipline to ensure that, at the completion of the relevant postgraduate
degree, eachstudent is highly skilled in his/her own specialty and possesses
pertinent knowledge, attitudes and a mastery level of that specialty.

The development of these guidelines led each specialty to revise and
update its competencies and skills requirements as well as qualifications
and membership standards. The content of each of the ‘specialist area of
psychology’ on the APS website 11 has been consequently revised and
updated making sure that each specialty is now clearly defined and
restricted within their boundaries of competency.This means that
inappropriately specialist psychologists are no longer able to misrepresent
themselves and their specialist services.

These guidelines have helped to address some of the misconceptions
mentioned at the beginning of this article by highlighting the differences in
postgraduate training of each specialty.

There is no mention, at any time, for example, in any specialty with the
exception of forensic psychology, of any exposure, either theoretically or
pragmatically (via placements), to court proceedings, forensic
assessment(s), report writing skills and/or forensic interventions, or anything
even remotely pertinent to the forensic field.

It is therefore evident that clinical and forensic psychologistsdo not have the
same training, skills and knowledge. Those psychologists whowould argue
against that are probably not so much unwilling to identify their own
limitations and boundaries within their competencies, but perhaps are
mostly afraid of losing a very substantially lucrative part of their job if they
were to lose their forensic endorsement.

One could argue that by completing a ‘number’ of professional
development workshops in forensic psychology one could address the gap
in the ‘perceived’ missing knowledge. I have heard this argument before,
many times, but I have also attended in the last five years enough
workshops to know that there is no possible way that one could substitute
knowledge, skills and capabilities developed over two years of full-time
study at a Masters degree, which not only includes several coursework
subjects relevant to the forensic arena, but also includes four full-time
placements with a total of 1000 hours of practical experience, of which at
least 500 hours must be involved in direct experience in forensic
interventions and evaluations, by attending professional development
workshops.

9Supra n 2
10Supra n 2
11 Supra 4

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Key Points:
· Unless a psychologist has completed a formal postgraduate course

in forensic psychology, he/she would NOT have the same
proficiencies and competencies as a forensic psychologist.

· Each specialist postgraduate course has very singular and unique
coursework subjects and placements that are closely related to the
area of psychology in question. Although some skills, techniques and
knowledge are generic, most of the skills are unique and pertinent to
each specialty within psychology.

· Psychology is a relatively young profession and guidelines have
recently been developed in Australia to qualify for areas of specialty.

· Blurred guidelines have allowed some psychologists to call
themselves forensic psychologists when they do not in fact hold the
appropriate qualifications.

Food for thought: Did you know that Continuing Professional
Development (CPD) was not actually compulsory until July
2010? It hasonly become mandatory after the Psychology
Board of Australia replaced each state/territory board, and it is
now a requirement for psychologists to complete a minimum
of 30 hours of professional development each year to be able
to renew their registration.

2. Grandfathering of Psychologists

Grandfathering of forensic psychologists via length

Forensic psychology has only been recognised as a distinct field within
psychology in the last decade. Many psychologists who completed their
formative years more than 10-15 years ago and hold a title of forensic
psychologist had minimal/no academic avenues in which to specialise;
therefore unless they have recently completed a specialist postgraduate
degree, they hold no specialist forensic training.

Most of the current psychologists involved in the judicial system and
appearing in court tribunals in Australia are those professionals that
graduated before the establishment of specialist forensic courses. These
professional though are regarded as experts because of their long-term
career in psychology instead of their formative training background.

These professionals however, although highly skilled and very experienced,
may lack of the appropriate training essential to expert witnesses to
demonstrate mastery skills and knowledge. Professional experience might
NOT be enough to provide the psychologist with the same level of
proficiency that one would acquire throughout structured formal training.
Experience alone does not guarantee expertise. As Judge David Bazelon
stated in his opinionformal training and actual experience should be
prerequisites and should not be mutually exclusive:

“The determination of a psychologist’s competence to render an
expert opinion based on his findings as to the presence or
absence of mental disease or defect must depend upon the
nature and extent of his knowledge. It does not depend upon his
claim to the title “psychologist”… When completion of training is
followed by actual experience in the treatment and diagnosis of

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disease in association with psychiatrists or neurologists, the
opinion of a psychologist may properly be received in
evidence”.12

The problem that we might face when one tries to increase the benchmark
of specialties in the scenario of grandfathering via length of professional
experience only is the following: if these professionals have no specialist
training and have attempted no or minimal further professional
development via formal studies as opposed to CPD, how can they deliver
specialist services, demonstrate the requirement of competencies and fulfil
their duty of enhancing the standards of their profession?

One current argument used to bypass lack of specialised training is that
‘exposure’ to a particular forensic field over the years of practice would be
enough, or perhaps, close enough, to acquire mastery skills and knowledge
and provision of forensic services.

If we believe the logic that just exposure gives someone expertise, then one
could easily argue that nurses, for example, have higher expertise than
doctors or surgeons. Nurses and doctors have very different training and
expertise, so the two professions cannot be directly compared. It would be
bizarre to infer that nurses have the same proficiencies of surgeons based
on their exposure to particular patients/population. However, many
psychologists have been granted their specialist title of forensic psychologist
based purely on their work experience.

Key Point: Although it is important to recognise professional
experience and years of practice in the forensic arena, it should
not be used as a sole way of assessing one’s expertise.

A combination of postgraduate training and experience in Forensic
Psychology should be a MUST.

Food for Thought: Often academics [psychologists] are
recognised as leading experts in the judicial system. Although
the latter is certainly true when one is trying to either confirm or
disconfirm or test a particular theoretical framework within
psychology, it should be remembered that some academics,
although highly knowledgeable, have no experience with real
forensic clientele and often they have never practiced as
psychologists. There is a significant difference between testing
theories using university students, for example, or analyzing
statistical data and actually sitting face-to-face to assess or
deliver psychotherapy to a forensic client.

Grandfathering of psychologists via College system

One of the frequently required pre-requisites to become ‘expert’ in a
certain field is the membership to a particular body that aims at regulating
the practice of that science, specialty or field. These bodies usually have a
set of strict criteria set out for their membership requirements assuring,
therefore, that only those professionals who meet the benchmarks will
become members.

12Judge Bazelon (1962) in Weiner, B. W., Freedheim, D. K., Goldstein, A. M., &Schinka, J. A. (2003), Handbook of Psychology:
Forensic psychology. Wiley & Sons: New Jersey

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In Australia, the body for forensic psychologists is the APS College of
Forensic Psychologists:

“APS Colleges represent specialist areas in psychology. Each
College promotes its area, maintains practice standards and
quality assurance, and encourages and supports the education
and professional development of specialist practitioners”.13

Membership to the APS College of Forensic Psychologists is currently
however not compulsory for professionals appearing as experts in our
judicial system. With the migration to the Psychology Board of Australia in
June 2010, however, membership to the APS Colleges became more
appealing for two major reasons:

1. Membership to a College would guarantee immediate and
‘hassle-free’ endorsement by the Board in the relevant area of
practice (e.g. membership to the APS College of Forensic
Psychologists would guarantee endorsement in the area of
forensic psychology).

2. New guidelines for membership to each College were going to
be revised and the standards increased, which would have
made it difficult for many psychologists without a postgraduate
degree to meet benchmarks for membership.

The criteria for membership to the APS College of Forensic Psychologists,
before the revision in October 2010, in fact allowed members to apply and
ultimately receive membership without having completed a postgraduate
degree in forensic psychology.

The current criteria for membership, however, which were proposed and
adopted in October 2010, clearly identify postgraduate training in forensic
psychology as an essential criterion for membership:

· “An accredited Doctorate degree in forensic
psychologyfollowed by a minimum one year full-time equivalent
supervised practice,” or

· “An accredited Masters degree (or combined PhD/Masters) in
forensic psychology, followed by a minimum of two years of
supervised practice”.14

As previously mentioned, all currently endorsed forensic psychologists who
have no specialist postgraduate training in forensic psychology, if
scrutinized under the current guidelines for membership to the APS College
of Forensic Psychologists, which is the Body meant to regulate the provision
of forensic psychology in Australia, would not meet the minimum
requirement for membership and most likely lose their endorsement as a
consequence.

Key Point:A very small percentage of currently endorsed forensic
psychologists and members of the APS College of Forensic
Psychologists truly meet the strict yet higher benchmarks for
recognition of this specialty.

13APS College of Forensic Psychologists - http://www.groups.psychology.org.au/cfp/join/
14Supra n 13

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Discussion

Legal representatives looking to engage the services of a forensic
psychologist should check the credentials of the candidate and remember
the following key points:

1. NOT all psychologists have the same proficiencies, competencies and,
most importantly, the same training

2. Generalist psychologists, although highly skilled,DO NOT possess
specialist skills to assess forensic clientele irrespective of their years of
professional experience

3. Other specialist psychologists, although highly skilled, are NOT qualified
as forensic psychologists

4. Not all ‘forensic’ psychologists are properly trained as forensic
psychologists. A qualified forensic psychologist MUST have formal
postgraduate qualifications (either a Master, Doctorate, and/or PhD
degree) along with having completed two years of intensive supervision
and practical work experience

5. Level of expertise is NOT correlated to years of experience and length of
professional practice

The following criteria should be used as benchmarks when selecting
experts:

I. Undergraduate degree preferably in forensic psychology either a
double major or minoring in criminal justice/criminology

II. Postgraduate degree (Masters, Doctorate or PhD) in forensic
psychology

III. Extensive professional work experience in a variety of forensic
settings, both private and public,

IV. Extensive experience conducting both assessment and
psychological treatment with forensic clientele

V. Membership to the APS College of Forensic Psychologists

VI. On-going professional development in forensic psychological
matters and completion of specific forensic psychometric
assessments tools workshops namely PCL-R, SVR-20, HCR-20, STATIC
and STABLE

All the aforementioned should be prerequisite for any professional involved
both in civil and criminal proceedingsas expert witnesses.

If a postgraduate training course in forensic psychology has not been
completed however by your expert, his/her formal training and professional
experience should be assess against the current benchmarks and standards
provided by the APS College of Forensic Psychologists and the Psychology
Board of Australia under the “Guidelines on area of practice
endorsement”15.

15 “ Guidelines on area of practice endorsement” – page 18 –http://www.psychologyboard.gov.au/Endorsement/Codes-
Guidelines-Policies.aspx

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Notwithstanding current misconceptions and diverse professional opinions
legal representative should aimed at selecting only psychologists who have
completed satisfactorily specialised formal postgraduate training in forensic
psychologyas they will havethe required level of skills, knowledge, and
proficiencies to be involved in the assessing of forensic clientele for the
purpose of court proceeding.
Notwithstanding current misconceptions forensic psychologists can provide
a valuable service to the court!

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Appendix One:Historical Development of Forensic Psychology

Psychologists started to testify about psychological phenomena in criminal
and civil proceedings as experts in courts from the 1890s mostly in Europe16.
From then, as psychology continued to develop as a science based on
empirical studies, the legal justice system slowly began to use psychologists
in court proceedings more and more, especially in United States of
America17. However, because the psychologists’ formal training lacked a
medical degree, their testimony and level of expertise was often
questioned in court18.

It was not until 1962 when the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeal held in Jenkins v.
United States that psychologists were allowed to provide expert testimony
on the mental state of the defendant at the time the offence was
committed19. In the opinion, Judge David Bazelon reviewed the training
and expertise skills that professional psychologists need to have in order to
be able to testify in court as an expert20. He stated the following:

“To warrant the use of expert testimony, two elements are
required. First, the subject of an inference must be so distinctively
related to some science, profession, business, or occupation as to
be beyond the ken of the average layman. Second, the witness
must have such skill, knowledge, or experience in that field or
calling as to make it appear that his opinion or inference will
probably aid the trier in his search for truth. The knowledge may in
some fields be derived from reading alone, in some from practice
alone, or as is more commonly the case, from both. The test is
whether the opinion offered will be likely to aid the trier in the
search for truth …”.21

His opinion led to the major breakdown of the previously unchallenged
assumption of psychiatric superiority over psychology increasing the
appearance of psychologists in court proceedings22.

The growing presence of psychologists in court warranted the need to
develop specific guidelines, training, and a core of scientific and
professional knowledge and skills pertinent to this specific field of
psychology. As a result, forensic psychology was born as a discipline within
professional psychology23.

Although the actual origin of forensic psychology can be dated back to
1908 when Munsterberg published “On the Witness Stand”24, it was not until
1968 when the American Psychological-Law Society (AP-LS)25was founded
that the term ‘forensic psychology’ was operationally defined and a set of
guidelines were developed:

“To improve the quality of forensic psychological services;
enhance the practice and facilitate the systematic development
of forensic psychology; encourage a high level of quality in

16Weiner, B. W., Freedheim, D. K., Goldstein, A. M., &Schinka, J. A. (2003), Handbook of Psychology: Forensic psychology. Wiley
& Sons: New Jersey
17 Supra n 15
18 Supra n 15
19Supra n 15
20Supra n 15
21Supra n 12
22Supra n 15
23Supra n 15
24American Psychological-Law Society - www.ap-ls.org
25American Psychological Association (APA) – www.apa.org

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practitioners to acknowledge and respect the rights of those they
serve” (Specialty Guidelines for Forensic Psychologists, 1991)26.
The AP-LS eventually merged in 1995 with the Division 41, Psychology and
Law, of the American Psychological Association (APA), and it was not until
2001 that the APA officially recognised forensic psychology as a specialty
by the Commission for the Recognition of Specialties in Professional
Psychology (CRSPP)27.
The guidelines since then have been revised several times and adjusted to
ongoing demands, reforms and continuous developments and they are
now up to their sixth edition (6th draft released in March 2011)28.
Forensic psychology, as other specialties within general psychology, is
continuously growing, especially after the booming of television series in the
last decades portraying a fascinating but equally wrong depiction of what
forensic psychology is and what it entails on a daily basis.
The ongoing growth and development of this specialty in America has
guided the development of this discipline all around the world including
Australia. The only difference is that we are still a ‘few’ years behind when
comparing our standards to the American ones and our involvement in
criminal proceedings, and the recognition of specialist titles and specialist
training.

26Supra n 24
27Supra n 24
28Supra n 24

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ElleGianvanni

Elle is the principal of the FMC. She offers a unique and in-depth insight into
offending behaviour, which is drawn upon many years of university studies,
countless hours of professional development and ‘hands-on’ practical
experience. She provides the court system with true expert knowledge,
delivered in plain English, which meets and exceeds the paramount of duty
of an expert witness.

Elle’s specialty is the assessment and treatment of violence and sexual
offences. She took a stand in her professional practice to specialise only in
a in a niche area within forensic psychology because she truly believes that
LESS IS MORE.

Elle is also passionately committed to the continual improvement and
development of the forensic psychologist profession in Australia and
improving the quality of psychologists involved in the judicial system as
expert witness. Elle’s services are effective, efficient and highly defensible,
and include:

· Pre-Trial and Pre-Sentence Assessments and Reports
· Risk Assessment and Risk Managements Plans
· Expert Testimonies
· Individual & Group Therapy (particularly Anger Management, Violent

and Sexual Offending Behaviour)
· Psychological Consultations
· Profiling
· Interrogation and Interview Technique Consultations

Elle offers a distinctly unique and high level of expertise, extensive
experience and an excellent understanding of her clients' needs. Her
reports are not only encapsulating her theoretical knowledge of offending
behaviour but also her distinctive and extensive groundwork with forensic
clientele. This ultimately enhances her understanding of offending
behaviour and ultimately provides the court and tribunal with a unique
understanding that would not otherwise reached.

Page | 15

Elle's Curriculum Vitae

Education

· PhD Candidate, Deakin University, Victoria
· Master Psychology (Forensic), Bond University, Queensland
· Graduate Certificate in Criminology, Bond University,

Queensland
· B.A. Psychology (Honours), Murdoch University, Western

Australia
· B.A. Double Major Psychology and Criminology, Edith Cowan

University, Western Australia
· Diploma of Human Services, TAFE, Western Australia
· Cert. IV and III in Human Services, TAFE, Western Australia
· Diploma Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, Italy

Memberships

· Member of The Australian Psychological Society (APS)
· Member of the APS College of Forensic Psychologists
· Registered with The Psychology Board of Australia

PSY0000971965 (Forensic Endorsement)
· Member of the American Psychological Associations (APA)
· Member of the Academy Behavioral Profiling
· Member of The Australian and New Zealand Association of

Psychiatry Psychology and Law (ANZAPPL)
· Member of the Society of Police and Criminal Psychology
· Member of American Psychology-Law Society (AP-LS)
· Member of the Expert Witness Institute

Work History

· Owner and Lead Practitioner of The Forensic Mind Consultancy
· Owner and Lead Practitioner Elle Gianvanni Private Practice
· Specialist Forensic Psychologist, Forensic Psychological Services,

NSW Corrective Services
· Forensic Psychologist, Mind Professionals (QLD)
· Forensic Psychologist, Prison Mental Health Services, QLD Health

(QLD)
· Forensic Psychologist, Wolston Correctional Centre, QLD

Corrective Services (QLD)

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