psychological formulation

• Psychological formulation

  A form of diagnosis that aims to explain the causes of a person's difficulties by constructing an individual summary or story of a person's life, jointly constructed by the person and their therapist
• Forensic psychologists

  • Concerned with the assessment and treatment of offending behaviour
  • Produce a psychological formulation of individual offenders after they are sentenced
• Psychological (case) formulation

  A holistic approach to understanding the factors underlying criminal behaviour in such way that informs the changes needed and the mechanisms/treatments for such a change to occur
• Psychological case formulation

  1. Offence analysis - understanding the crime

  2. Case formulation - Getting a detailed personal story of an individual
• Offence analysis

  • The first phase to gain insight into the offender's motivations
  • Identifying the reasons why the offence happened to assess the risk of reoffending and what possible causes can be removed or changed to reduce the risk
• Function of offending

  What purpose the criminal behaviour serves for the individual, e.g. fulfilling a craving or need
• Application to treatment

  1. Establish an intervention for the offender based on the conclusions drawn

  2. The rehabilitative programme should reflect how the offending started, the risk of reoffending, and the offender's level of motivation
• Psychological formulation is not a 'one size fits all' model and must be constantly informed by the individual's personal circumstances and the specific factors that triggered their offending behaviour
• Strengths of psychological formulation

  • Can provide insight into particularly complex cases of offending
  • Brings together the work of many agencies and professionals within the criminal justice system to decide the best way forward for the offender
• There may be a practical problem when trying to make sense of the wealth of information that is made available, as some of the evidence may be contradictory
• Sources of bias within the process include the offender's unreliable retrospective recall of events and the psychologist's subjective interpretation
• The success of psychological formulation is usually assessed in terms of reconviction rates rather than actual reoffending, which obscures the fact that most reoffending goes undetected
• The effectiveness of psychological formulation should be based on whether the individual has changed their sense of identity or social circumstances, rather than just reoffending rates
• Widespread adoption of psychological formulation methodology may help to reduce reoffending, which remains at an all-time high (currently estimated to be around 70%)
• Forensic and clinical psychologists working in the field of psychological formulation are subject to the Health and Care Professionals Council (HCPC) ethical guidelines