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What About Forensic Psychology?

When someone commits a crime, people often wonder about the reasons. Do those who commit crimes never think of implications for others, they simply don't care, or they get a huge buzz from it? As they embroil themselves or others in covering up their actions, does it not occur to them they'll get caught? There are all sorts of theories, from behavioural or social, to deep psychological. We like to make sense of things somewhere, and often what we think is a 'clue' to the puzzle eventually surfaces. We feel things making sense like in a good book or TV show.

And when someone commits a shocking crime, getting away with it for years, it really can seem genuine when they finally admit how badly they feel. With others, it looks like they'd do the same again with less than half-a-chance. I never cease to be surprised when someone murders his wife, and is found years later, seemingly living a normal married life. What that is like for the current wife must be horrendous. Some of these men split their family into supporters and detractors, and manage the same with the legal process, dragging things on with denials, appeals and retrials. They are very persuasive! I sound as if it is mainly men who default, but there are cases of women who get away with deception and murder on a serial scale.

Do they separate parts of themselves off? Can anyone do it? Can someone do it to others?

Some criminals have used a defence that it was another part of themselves committing a crime: 'It was the other Brian', or maybe 'Little Brian'. They may genuinely feel someone or something else made them do it, something just came over them, or they do not remember. In some courts in the United States, films are allowed to be shown which seem to suggest that someone is acting in different modes or personalities. And a significant proportion of offenders and prison inmates have, at some stage in their lives, suffered injury to the brain.



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I cannot deny the validity of these findings. However, it would mean that virtually anyone may be able to disclaim responsibility when their behaviour comes under scrutiny. What I feel may happen in some 'ritual abuse' scenarios is that well-meaning therapists have at times been too lenient, wore the wrong spectacles, or tended to believe in rather too much. When someone describes horrendous events, the natural reaction is to feel sympathy and horror. But there may be other reasons for someone describing things and being certain of their reality, for them. Like other scenarios, once someone has gone public with an account or a theory, it is not easy to think 'Hang on, I'm not so sure in this instance.' Am I saying there is no such thing as ritual abuse?  I am not. People have different experiences and challenges to face, and it is what they do about them that matters. Some people are able to realise what they have done, or what has been done to them, and to help others understand. Others deny not only their part, but also what others have been through. Whether people follow this or that path or way for themselves, it should at least be their own choice.

Dr Paul Simpson founded Project Middle Ground in Arizona, after firstly encouraging clients to talk in terms of child abuse using a method of regression, then realising that many of the apparent recollections were more likely a side-effect of the type of therapeutic approach. His book entitled 'Second Thoughts' is still available and explains more fully.


When I realised how techniques like guided imagery, subpersonalities, facilitated communication, hypnosis and general frameworks of therapeutic or other belief, were likely to be influential in some outcomes, I rethought a lot of my own assumptions.


For more books on Memory visit Middle Ground at https://toukanalia.50megs.com/books.html

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