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A 46-year-old Caucasian woman referred to as Ms. G was charged with burglary. She was detained for the crime after being found by law enforcers with her neighbor’s property. G was also intoxicated and found with drugs during time of arrest (Case Vignettes, n.d). She expressed aggressiveness, hostility and combativeness after being accused of the crime. In jail, she rallied protests to contest the way she was being treated in jail. Ms. G is also assaultive and has never received mental treatment.

Reason for Referral

The primary reason for referral is to assess Ms. G’s competency to stand trial. This involves evaluation of the client’s mental capacity to understand problems and make decisions. It also seeks to evaluate if the client understands the nature and purpose of the legal proceedings leveled against her.

Purpose of the Forensic Assessment Report

There are various purposes for developing a forensic assessment report of the client referred to me. First, the report seeks to give detailed information regarding legal questions of the client’s competence to stand trials. In addition, the assessment report will provide her state of sanity at the time of the offense. Other purposes include: information on prior mental health status, victims or witnesses, as well as prior criminal justice records (Stricker et al. 2003).

My Impressions of the client

Having assessed Ms. G, I recommend that she should go for mental treatment. This is because she is suffering from major depression that is characterized by aggressive behavior and feeling of paranoia. Ms. G lost her parents at a tender age, a factor that has disturbed her mentally. As such, she is not yet competent to stand trial.

Professional Roles and Relationship

As a forensic psychologist, I am obliged to make sure that the client is informed of her legal rights worth regard to the expected forensic services. In addition, the client should understand the purpose and nature of the procedure (Stricker et al. 2003). Further, the relationship between the psychologist and client should not be dual. Moreover, the expert should stop offering services to parties in legal proceedings with whom they have personal or professional relationships that are inconsistent with the expected relationships (Stricker et al. 2003). Combining roles of therapist and expert is also not advisable.

Hypothesis

Ms. G suffers from severe depression and substance abuse, thus she is not competent to stand trial.

References

Stricker, G., Weiner, I. B., Freedheim, D. K., Widiger, T. A., Schinka, J. A., & Velicer, W. F.

(2003). Handbook of psychology: Clinical psychology (Vol. 8). New York: John Wiley &

Sons Inc.

Case Vignettes. (n.d). Case 1 (Pdf Document).