Case formulation

Question 1

Overview of CF (7)

Answer 1

-comes from clinical
-use to form diagnosis and treatment for those with MH
-Explain cause of behaviour & crime so can intervene
-Once convicted go through assessment and risk management (risk, reoffending, rehab)
-consider vulnerabilities preventing release like MH agg and SH
-No standardised approach
-Brief, simply info so that judge can read

Question 2

What is a case formulation? (7)

Answer 2

-Document to inform diff agencies working with an offender
-How psychologist assess risk, cause and treatment
-Analysis of offending behaviour
-Design T to reduce reaction to risk factors
-Understanding warning signs
-Victim safety
-Review T plans

Question 3

A03 for ‘what is case formulation’

Answer 3

+Berry: to be effective, staff need to use without bias. Inc meetings between staff and offender to improve attitudes and prevent neg reporting
- Hard to assess effectiveness as not standardised and defined diff by diff organisations

Question 4

What are the 4 basics and what study defined them?

Answer 4

-Hart et al 2001
-Individualised (explanation of cause based on history)
-Narrative (qual data)
-Diachronic (full account)
-Testable (measure impact of T)

Question 5

Why is case formulation used and who is it used for? (6)

Answer 5

-Offenders w complex problems, don’t know what T to use
-Unusual crime (CF can aid knowledge w new crime)
-Standard T’s failed/recidivism
-Current T not helping
-Help other professionals to understand
-look at difficulties, relationship, bio and social circumstance, life events

Question 6

A03 for why CF is used

Answer 6

+Reduce recidivism, helps offender’s life
- Retrospective data, inaccurate, memory, secondary data

Question 7

What are the 3 stages?

Answer 7

-Offender analysis (crime and why)
-Understanding the function of offendig (theories, cause of offending)
-Application to treatment (effective T plan)

Question 8

What is Offender analysis?

Answer 8

-Analyse crime (how, why)
-Assess offender (thoughts)
-If know what they thought, can give right intervention and reduce offending
-Shows how much risk
-Analyse beh not just describe (in depth, what and why motivated)

Question 9

A03 for offender analysis

Answer 9

+Holistic view of crime and offender as look at all aspects
-Qual data, subjective. Researcher bias could impact

Question 10

Techniques used for offender analysis to collect data (6)

Answer 10

-Interview
-Psychometric testing
-Self report data as can’t see the offence
-Psychological similarity (look at similar crimes to see how committed and function may be similar)
-Compare witness statements
-Crim record

Question 11

A03 for techniques to collect data

Answer 11

+Objective - test scores (psychometric)
-Self report - DC’s

Question 12

What is included in an offence analysis? (2)

Answer 12

-look at criminogenic factors like employment, education, lifestyle, drugs. Understand beh
-Reasons why they committed offence, motivations, when where

Question 13

What is offence paralleling beh? (3)

Answer 13

-Int and ext motivations for crime
-look at beh related to crime
-Identify and compare to new environment to see how effective T is

Question 14

What is scenario planning? Who is it used for? (5)

Answer 14

-look at risk to selves and others
-Speculate what might happen but NOT prediction of what will
-Serious and violent off
-worst and best case scenarios. prepare for when released, where they can go
-likely kind of violence or situations where they may be violent in future. Who’s victims, level of harm

Question 15

A03 for scenario planning

Answer 15

+Whitehead et al. CF successful for Mr C. case study. 14m later still not offended. Only minor motoring offences, pulled away from gang
- Based on reconviction not reoffending. need more valid

Question 16

What is understanding the function of offending? (7)

Answer 16

-Revealed by offence analysis
-Crim beh similar to craving (rapists exercise power to compensate for feeling worthless)
-Use psych theory to see how it explains beh
-Eg behaviourist = reinforced crime, reward for indiv or psychodynamic issues in family
-look at past research for trends
-difficult to build theory as can’t see offence. look at similar offences
-Charles Whitman: MH, brain injury, SLT, psychodynamic

Question 17

A03 for understanding the function of offending

Answer 17

+Flexible. Not standardised so use diff techniques and change doc
- Chadwick. good for cause of beh but not identifying aspects of case requiring theory driven inference. 44% at least good enough

Question 18

Application to treatment (6)

Answer 18

-Use to form most effective treatment
-Educate offender
-Give to judge to show treatability, risk, if likely to reoffend
-CF from learning perspective = treatments based on OC. Cog = CBT
-T should reflect how started
-Review to see if working

Question 19

A03 for application to treatment

Answer 19

+Mc Knight - effective for predicting treatments which will work and those that won’t
-Issue as several people involved. All need to be trained

Question 20

What are key A01 Terms to include? (13)

Answer 20

-CF definition
-Why we use (unusual crime, complex)
-Offender analysis (who what where when)
-Criminogenic factors (education)
-Offence paralleling beh (int and ext motivation)
-Scenario planning (best/worse case)
-Understanding function of offending (theories and research)
-Application to treatment (formulate best)
-Flow chart (less serious, at a glance)
-Case study (individualised)
-Triangulation (self-report, observations, psychometric)
-Functional similarity (prev cases)
-Rehabilitations (what will work)

Question 21

Example of flow chart for CF

Answer 21

-Early experiences (bullied)
-Core beliefs (can’t be taken adv of)
-Triggers (crowds)
-Situation (someone starts fight)
-Thoughts (how dare they)
-Feelings, beh and physical symptoms (embarrassed, shouting, HR)

Question 22

A03 for flow chart

Answer 22

+Diagram form helps to reduce complex info so easy to understand at a glance
-Reductionist. simplify complex info into diagrams

Question 23

A03 supporting evidence (3)

Answer 23

-Whitehead et al (case study, Mr C, 14 mths, driving, gang)
-McKnight (predict correct T)
-Berry (to be successful need to use w/o bias. Increase meetings to improve attitudes, no neg bias)

Question 24

A03 points - effective (5)

Answer 24

-Reduce recidivism and imp life
-Objective (psychometric)
-Flexible (use diff techniques)
-Holistic (all aspects of offender and crime)
-Diagram form (reduce complex info)

Question 25

A03 Contrasting evidence (2)

Answer 25

-Chadwick: good at identifying cause but less on aspects needing theory driven inference. 44% at least good enough)
-Hanson and Wallace Capretta: recidivism risk factors in male batterers, imp on self-report measures but not recidivism. Data gathering may not be accurate

Question 26

A03 not effective (10)

Answer 26

-self report. DC’s
-Retrospective. memory of offender, other people describing childhood
-Qualitative (subj and bias)
-Reductionist (risk of simplifying complex data)
-Case study (unique, correlational)
-Info gathered at the time (miss important)
-Hard to assess effectiveness as not standardised
-Lots of detailed data (hard to give treatment)
-Several people, all need to be trained
-Based on reconviction not reoffending