THERAPEUTIC WORK WITH ALIENATED CHILDREN AND THEIR FAMILIES

This article describes goals and strategies for family-focused counseling and therapy when children are alienated from a parent after separation and divorce. The confidential intervention takes place within a legally defined contract and is based on a careful assessment of the dynamics of the multiple factors that contribute to the alienation and how the chilďs development is affected. Strategies for forming multiple therapeutic alliances with often reluctant, recalcitrant, and polarized parents are discussed together with ways of helping the child directly.     

The trouble with psychopathy as a general theory of crime

The concept of psychopathy, as defined by Robert Hare, is reviewed with respect to its status as a general theory of crime. A hybrid of the medical pathology model and personality trait approach, the psychopathy concept proposes that a significant portion of serious crime is committed by psychopathic individuals. Hare's version of psychopathy, besides demonstrating weak applicability and a propensity for tautology, is subject to labeling effects, oversimplicity, reductionism, the fundamental attributional error, inattention to context, and disregard for the dynamic nature of human behavior. It is concluded that the psychopathy concept is substantially limited with respect to its ability to describe and clarify general criminal behavior but that it may still have value as a partial explanation for certain types of non-criminal predatory behavior.     

Predicting Institutional Adjustment and Recidivism with the Psychopathy Checklist Factor Scores: A Meta-Analysis

This study explored the validity of the PCL/PCL-R factor scores in predicting institutional adjustment and recidivism in forensic clients and prison inmates. Forty-two studies in which institutional adjustment, release outcome (recidivism), or both were assessed prospectively with the PCL/PCL-R yielded 50 effect size estimates between the PCL/PCL-R factor scores and measures of institutional adjustment/recidivism. A meta-analysis of these findings disclosed that Factor 2 (Antisocial/Unstable Lifestyle) correlated moderately well with institutional adjustment and recidivism, whereas Factor 1 (Affective/Interpersonal Traits) was less robustly associated with these outcomes. Direct comparisons of the mean effect sizes attained by Factors 1 and 2 revealed that Factor 2 was significantly more predictive of total outcomes, general recidivism, violent recidivism, and outcomes from the 12 most methodological sound studies than Factor 1. There was less differentiation between Factors 1 and 2 on measures of institutional adjustment.     

Assessing criminal thought content: preliminary validation of the criminal thought content inventory (CTCI)

The purpose of this study was to evaluate a measure of criminal thought content entitled the Criminal Thought Content Inventory (CTCI). The 30-item CTCI generates a total score and scores for three individual dimensions or scales: Negative Attitudes toward Authority (NAA), Positive Attitudes toward Deviance (PAD), and Criminal Identity (CID). Students from two universities (N?=?335 and 456) completed the CTCI, along with measures of criminal thought process and delinquent behavior. According to the results of several analyses, the CTCI possesses adequate internal consistency, good test-retest reliability, and adequate concurrent validity. Confirmatory factor analyses performed on both samples offered support for the three-dimensional structure of the CTCI and an item response theory analysis indicated that over 80% of the items loaded at least moderately on a single latent trait. These results suggest that the CTCI possesses the requisite psychometric properties to warrant inclusion in studies investigating criminal thought content.