Forensic psychology:

Summary

This chapter explores the span of forensic psychology and examines the roles of forensic psychology practitioners. Forensic psychology has emerged as an identifiable subdiscipline within psychology, and this has been conflated with discussions about the writ of the psychologists who are active within this field. The chapter attempts to delineate and separate these two. Otto and Heilbrun argue that forensic psychology is at a crossroads and needs to clearly distinguish practice, educate legal consumers and devote more attention to treatment issues. Given that all types of psychologists may be working in a forensic setting, it is questionable whether it makes sense to think of there being a common curriculum that could produce a generic 'forensic' psychologist. Forensic psychology practitioners are often depicted in the media through fictionalized representations as offender profilers, which is but one, albeit a highly specialized, area of activity.