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Skills and Expertise
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January 1991 - September 1997
December 1997 - present
Publications
Publications (129)
Nonconsensual sexual behaviors that occur in nightlife settings pose unique policy challenges and encouraging bystander behavior (i.e., either to stop the actor or help the recipient; nonemotive words used to avoid priming participants) might be an effective way to prevent these behaviors. Few researchers, none Australian, have undertaken quantitat...
Background: Alexithymia is a trait characterized by difficulties identifying feelings, difficulties describing feelings, and externally orientated thinking. It is widely regarded as an important transdiagnostic risk factor for a range of psychopathologies, including depressive and anxiety disorders. Whilst several well-validated psychometric measur...
The Perth Alexithymia Questionnaire-Short Form (PAQ-S) is a 6-item self-report measure of alexithymia (i.e., difficulties identifying one's own feelings, difficulties describing one's own feelings, and externally oriented thinking). It was designed to provide a brief and robust alexithymia assessment tool for quick administration in research and cl...
Unsolicited sexual behaviors that constitute sexual violence appear to be commonplace in nightlife settings in many countries and bystander intervention might be a way to eliminate them. However, few researchers have investigated the barriers and facilitators that affect Australian bystanders’ likelihood to help, and these should be considered in t...
Background
: Alexithymia is a multidimensional personality trait comprised of difficulty identifying feelings, difficulty describing feelings, and externally oriented thinking. The assessment of alexithymia in people with acquired brain injury (ABI) is of clinical interest because alexithymia is linked to poor psychosocial functioning and community...
Apologies are ordered in law without certainty about whether or not recipients perceive ordered and voluntary apologies differently. This exploratory study investigates whether or not the voluntariness of apologies influences recipients’ perceptions of their sincerity, acceptance of apologies, willingness to forgive and intended retributive behavio...
Background
Ever since alexithymia was defined in the 1970s, robust associations have been observed between alexithymia and a variety of symptoms of psychopathology. Alexithymia is now widely regarded as an important transdiagnostic risk factor, and it is frequently assessed in clinical and research settings. However, despite this strong interest, i...
Paper presented at the 2021 Conference on Transdiagnostic Approaches, 24th September, Manchester, United Kingdom (Online).
Background: Ever since alexithymia was defined in the 1970s, robust associations have been observed between alexithymia and a variety of symptoms of psychopathology. Alexithymia is now widely regarded as an important transdiag...
Many patrons in nightlife settings around the world experience and engage in behavior that some find distressing and others find a useful method of interacting with potential sexual partners. Some of these behaviors nevertheless meet the World Health Organizations’ definition of sexual violence. Recent research suggests the social norms in Australi...
Background
Alexithymia is a trait involving difficulties processing emotions. Existing data suggest it is associated with violent offending. In violent offender programmes, therefore, violent offenders are screened for alexithymia and it is attended to if necessary. No studies have, however, examined alexithymia levels in nonviolent offenders and i...
Law and ethics require that risk assessment should be cross-culturally valid and fair, but Australian research in this regard is underdeveloped. A logical first step in progressing the work required to build a strong evidence base on culturally sensitive risk assessment in Australia is to determine the expert views of those in the field. We intervi...
Background: Alexithymia is a trait involving difficulties processing emotions. Existing data suggest it is associated with violent offending. Violent offender programmes, therefore, screen violent offenders for alexithymia and attend to it if necessary. No studies have, however, examined alexithymia levels in non-violent offenders and it is therefo...
Background: Alexithymia is a trait involving difficulty identifying feelings (DIF), difficulty describing feelings (DDF), and externally orientated thinking (EOT). It is a risk factor for criminal behaviour. It is commonly assessed with the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), but the psychometrics of the TAS-20 have not been tested across the range...
Much of what we know about sexual offenders and risk management is derived from empirical studies on sex offender populations in North America. In comparison to Canada and the United States, the evidence base in Australia on sexual offender risk management is under-developed. In this paper, we describe a current research project tasked with develop...
Alexithymia is a trait involving difficulty identifying feelings, difficulty describing feelings, and externally orientated thinking. Over the past two decades, it has usually been assessed using the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20). Recently, the Perth Alexithymia Questionnaire (PAQ) was developed to provide more detailed facet-level (an...
Objective:
There is ongoing uncertainty about the structure and definition of alexithymia. Conceptually, alexithymia has traditionally been defined as a multidimensional trait with four components: difficulty identifying feelings , difficulty describing feelings , externally orientated thinking , and difficulty fantasizing . However, some authors s...
The ERQ-F (Preece et al., 2020) is a 6-item self-report measure of the extent to which people habitually use daydreaming or fantasizing as a strategy to regulate their emotions. It is based on the same instruction/item format as Gross and John’s (2003) widely used Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (a measure of two other emotion regulation strategie...
Forensic psychologists’ role is well established, and they are rightly well regulated because their decisions and behaviour can have a significant impact on people’s rights and interests. Their ethical integrity, however, partly hinges on the psycholegal research products (data, methods and instruments) that they and others use. The ethical regulat...
Denault, V., Plusquellec, P., Jupe, L. M., St-Yves, M., Dunbar, N. E., Hartwig, M., … van Koppen, P. J. (2020). L’analyse de la communication non verbale: Les dangers de la pseudoscience en contextes de sécurité et de justice [The analysis of nonverbal communication: The dangers of pseudoscience in security and justice contexts]. Revue internationa...
For security and justice professionals (e.g., police officers, lawyers, judges), the thousands of peer-reviewed articles on nonverbal communication represent important sources of knowledge. However, despite the scope of the scientific work carried out on this subject, professionals can turn to programs, methods, and approaches that fail to reflect...
Para los profesionales de la seguridad y la justicia (policías, abogados, jueces), los miles de artículos revisados por pares sobre comunicación no verbal representan fuentes importantes de conocimiento. Sin embargo, a pesar del alcance del trabajo científico realizado sobre este tema, los profesionales pueden recurrir a programas, métodos y enfoqu...
Emotion regulation problems underlie the abnormal levels of negative or positive emotion that characterise many forms of psychopathology. Several self-report measures of emotion regulation ability exist, but many are inconsistent with contemporary emotion regulation theory, and none comprehensively assess this construct across both negative and pos...
Freely available for use. The Perth Emotion Regulation Competency Inventory (PERCI) is a 32-item self-report measure of emotion regulation ability. The PERCI measures people’s ability to modify the experiential and behavioral manifestations of their emotions, as well as people’s ability to know when it is appropriate to activate a goal to regulate...
The behavior of some nightlife-setting patrons would be unacceptable in workplaces or public settings and could cause distress to other patrons. This quantitative study determined 381 young Australian’s descriptive (i.e., what they perceive to be the behavior most other people engage in) and personal norms regarding four types of sexual behavior (d...
The assessment of offenders’ risk of reoffending, particularly sexual reoffending, is a core activity of forensic mental health practitioners. The purpose of these assessments is to reduce the risk of harm to the public, but they are controversial and become more contentious when Australian practitioners who want to undertake such assessments in an...
Alexithymia is a trait comprising people’s ability to focus attention on and accurately appraise their own emotions. Its assessment is of clinical interest because people who have difficulty processing their negative and positive emotions are more vulnerable to developing psychopathology symptoms, however, existing alexithymia measures cannot compr...
Freely available for use - Copyright Preece et al. (2018). The Perth Alexithymia Questionnaire (PAQ) is a 24-item self-report measure of alexithymia. Alexithymia is a multidimensional construct comprised of a set of emotion processing deficits: difficulty identifying one’s own feelings (DIF); difficulty describing one’s own feelings (DDF); and an e...
Apologies play an important role in forgiveness, but the pathway from apology to forgiveness is unclear. Many researchers use Goffman’s model of the corrective interchange, or models derived from it to guide their research. This model is based on the assumption that offenders apologise to victims who accept these apologies and that this leads to fo...
States have an obligation to protect themselves and their citizens from harm, and they use the coercive powers of law to investigate threats, enforce rules and arbitrate disputes, thereby impacting on people's well-being and legal rights and privileges. Psychologists as a collective have a responsibility to use their abilities, knowledge, skill and...
The Australian family courts introduced Child Inclusive Conferencing after the country adopted the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The legislation governing these conferences is minimalistic but the Family Court Consultants in the Family Court of Australia and the Federal Circuit Court have well-developed and documented guidel...
Alexithymia is an important mental health construct, but there is continuing debate regarding its definition and measurement. We attempt to resolve this definitional uncertainty in two ways. Firstly, we trace the development of the alexithymia construct, focusing particularly on what we call the Toronto and Amsterdam models, and examine a body of e...
Professions have a social obligation to ensure that their members’ professional behavior is morally appropriate. The psychology profession in most jurisdictions delegates the responsibility of ensuring that psychologists entering the profession are ethically competent to pre-practicum training programs. Educators responsible for teaching the ethics...
There is scholarly support for the use of apologies in the settlement of legal disputes and anecdotal evidence of their effectiveness in mediation and other dispute resolution processes. There is also a growing body of empirical psychological research regarding the use and effectiveness of apologies available to inform and guide the practice of law...
Researchers' understanding of bystanders' perspectives in the cyber-environment fails to take young people's perceptions into account and remains imperfect. Interventions encouraging adolescents to help targets of cyber-aggression are therefore typically based upon traditional school-based aggression research. Twenty-four in-depth interviews with A...
Objective: Alexithymia, which involves difficulties identifying, communicating and thinking about emotions, could be an important factor in violent offending. Our aim with the current study was to explore the levels of alexithymia among perpetrators of different types of violence (i.e., general and intimate partner) in Australia to better understan...
The apology-followed-by-forgiveness sequence that is dominant in the literature guides responses to apologies and influences how justice processes such as victim-offender mediation are conceived. In this paper, however, we present research that suggests a more suitable conceptualisation of the corrective process is one that includes the acceptance...
Psychologists need clients’ information to provide a service to them and must do it within the parameters of the normative framework that regulates the collection and management (i.e., storing, accessing, amending, using, and disposing) of client information. Presiding officers’ comments in the course of tribunal hearings and research findings, how...
The aim of this study was to add to the emerging knowledge about the role of bystanders in cyberbullying. To differentiate online versus offline bystander behaviours, 292 Australian children (mean age = 15.2y; female = 54.4%) reviewed hypothetical scenarios experimentally manipulated by bystander sex, relationship to target and perpetrator; and sev...
Objective:
To examine the neuropsychological outcomes for an adult patient, 2 years after receiving microsurgery and conventional radiotherapy for a recurrent craniopharyngioma; and the impact of a further intervention, stereotactic radiotherapy, on this level of neuropsychological functioning.
Participant:
JD, a 30 year old male whose recurrent...
Objective: Alexithymia, which involves difficulties identifying, communicating and thinking about emotions, could be an important factor in violent offending. Our aim with the current study was to explore the levels of alexithymia among perpetrators of different types of violence (i.e., general and intimate partner) in Australia to better understan...
Cyberbullying can be harmful to adolescents using online technology, and one way of combating it may be to use interventions that have been successfully utilised for traditional bullying, such as encouraging peer bystander intervention. The online environment, however, differs notably from the environment in which traditional bullying takes place r...
This study explores the predictive value of various clinical, neuropsychological, functional, and emotion regulation processes for recovery in Bipolar Disorder. Clinical and demographic information was collected for 27 euthymic or residually depressed BD participants. Seventy one percent of the sample reported some degree of impairment in psychosoc...
The lack of a theoretical framework limits educators' ability to train health practitioners how to disclose, and apologise for adverse medical events. The multidimensional theory of apology proposes apologies consist of one or more components which can either be self-focused (focused on the apologiser's needs) or other-focused (focused on the needs...
Some psychologists working in the psychology and law (psycholegal) field feel that the profession does not provide them with adequate ethical guidance even though the field is arguably one of the oldest and best established applied fields of psychology. The uncertainty psychologists experience most likely stems from working with colleagues whose pr...
Our premise is that ethics is the essence of good forensic practice and that mental health professionals must adhere to the ethical principles, standards, and guidelines of their professional bodies when they communicate their findings and opinions. We demonstrate that adhering to ethical principles can improve the quality of forensic reports and c...
We define domestic violence broadly in this chapter to reflect the richness of the contributions of the other authors in this book but also to challenge readers, researchers, policymakers and clinicians to think beyond the traditional conceptualisation of the construct.
In this article, we present a mixed method study that we undertook as part of a programme of research to explore the utility of the multidimensional theory of apology developed by Slocum et al. in explaining the function of apologies in family group conferences, healing circles, juvenile justice conferencing and victim offender mediation [Slocum, D...
The codes of ethics and conduct of a number of psychology bodies explicitly refer to human rights, and the American Psychological Association recently expanded the use of the construct when it amended standard 1.02 of the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. What is unclear is how these references to human rights should be inter...
Researchers have found that disrespectful behaviour can have a notable psychological impact on victims and observers thereof. It is not surprising, therefore, that law and all the major psychology codes of ethics acknowledge the principle of respect for the dignity of persons. The practical implications of this principle, however, are not clear. In...
Compared to their peers, correctional and forensic psychologists are more likely to encounter legal‐ethical problems and have complaints lodged against them. The problems that confront them are often novel compared to those their peers deal with. They therefore often feel unsupported and disheartened. Further, they may drift away from the norms tha...
Objective: This study investigated the profile of emotion dysregulation in Bipolar Disorder (BD) and compared it to Unipolar Depression, Anxiety, and Healthy control groups. Methods: 148 euthymic patients diagnosed with BD (n = 48), Unipolar Depressive disorder (n = 50), Anxiety disorder (n = 50), and a Healthy Control (HC) group (n = 48) were eval...
The need for quality standards and rules of conduct concerning all aspects of the activities of psychology has long been acknowledged. In particular, over the last few years there has been a growing awareness of the need for and the advantage of internationally recognized ethical standards, particularly concerning research and practice and the well...
Section 35(1)(c) of the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law Act (200929.
Health Practitioner Regulation National Law Act of 2009. (Queensland). View all references) requires the newly formed Psychology Board of Australia (PsyBA) “to develop or approve standards, codes and guidelines.” In 2010 the PsyBA decided to initially adopt the Austral...
Dans cet article, huit psychologues de diverses régions du monde (Argentine, Australie, Mexique, Nouvelle-Zélande, Norvège, Afrique du Sud, Turquie et États-Unis) font part de leurs observations sur l'apport du Code canadien de déontologie professionnelle des psychologues à l'échelle internationale. Les thèmes les plus souvent repris au sujet du Co...
To investigate patients' and family members' perceptions and experiences of disclosure of healthcare incidents and to derive principles of effective disclosure.
Retrospective qualitative study based on 100 semi-structured, in depth interviews with patients and family members.
Nationwide multisite survey across Australia.
39 patients and 80 family m...
It is possible that the physical and mental health of crime victims might be improved by forgiving those who have offended against them. To date, no research has been undertaken to examine the processes that influence victims' forgiveness. The goal of this project was to examine the forgiveness process in primary and secondary victims of violent an...
There is no consensus in the psychological literature regarding the operational definition of an apology, nor is there a comprehensive theory of apology. The object of this study was to use a hermeneutic phenomenological approach and grounded theory methodology to develop a theory of apology based on lay people's interpretation of apologetic respon...
Apologies are known to play an important role in the resolution of discrimination and harassment complaints brought under equal opportunity legislation. Sometimes parties agree on an apology as a term on the basis of which a complaint is settled. Occasionally, where a complaint is not settled, a respondent will be ordered to apologize. The ability...
Respect for the Dignity, Moral and Legal Rights of PeopleJusticeAutonomyNonmaleficenceBeneficenceVeracityFidelityResponsibilityConclusion
References
1997 Code2007 CodeConclusion
References
Concluding RemarksReferences
ConsentPrivacyConfidentialityConclusion
References
Close-up insights on how experts in the field are re-interpreting ethical principles to create workable policies for today and tomorrow, from the creators of the 2007 APS Code of Ethics. First cooperative project between Wiley-Blackwell and the APS. Offers a close-up view of how enduring ethical principles are reinvented to ensure lasting relevance...
Australia is working towards a National Open Disclosure Standard in which all adverse incidents are disclosed to patients in all health-care facilities in the country. Among the many good reasons for this approach, one that has not attracted attention is the possibility that disclosure of an adverse incident may moderate its impact on the recovery...
Apology has recently emerged from being a relatively obscure construct in law to one that is prominent in various areas of law through actual or proposed law reforms. Whilst law reform is welcome, it is important that changes should be grounded in scientifically accepted theories and supported by research data and, furthermore, that the effectivene...
Apology in law, particularly in civil law has become very prominent in Australia with every state and territory introducing legislation that promotes the making of apologetic statement by wrongdoers in civil proceedings. In this article I briefly review some of the arguments that are offered in support of these provisions and then examine some of t...
This paper reports the findings of a retrospective study designed, primarily, to investigate the predictive accuracy of the Rapid Risk Assessment for Sexual Offence Recidivism (RRASOR); the Static 99 and two models developed in Western Australia, namely the Violent Offender Treatment Program Risk Assessment Scale (VOTPRAS) and the 3-Predictor model...
Forgiving may lead to an improvement of mental health, and from a therapeutic jurisprudence perspective it is important to establish what aspects of judicial procedures can be changed to promote forgiving. The literature suggests that receiving an apology may encourage forgiving. However, there is a dearth of empirical research regarding the associ...
When asked to give a diagnosis in legal settings practitioners should be mindful of the tentative nature of psychiatric diagnoses and that courts require that such a diagnosis must have scientific credibility. South African courts are not explicit about the test they will apply to determine whether a diagnosis is scientifically credible, but some g...
Pre-trial detention of defendants has important legal, human rights and practical implications for defendants, their families, and society and therefore the area justifies research scrutiny. However, there is a dearth of empirical studies of bail decision-making and most of them have been retrospective studies. Prior studies have nevertheless ident...
Using an experimental design that is unique in the study of fear of crime, this study compared the impact of different television report formats (standard, reassuring and remote) of a prison escape on fear of crime (operationalised as state anxiety) experienced by a middle-aged (35–45 years) and an older group (65–75 years) and male and female subj...
Lawyers are often called upon by their older clients to draft contracts, make up wills or powers of attorney, or provide other forms of legal advice or service. With the increasing numbers of older people in the population, the numbers of older clients for legal practitioners is likely to increase. Older people are also at increased risk for impair...
Modern corrections practice requires an assessment of the risk of reoffending on at least two levels. First, risk assessments are necessary to decide which offenders should be targeted for rehabilitation. Second, risk assessment is necessary to deal with the increasing demand by the public and politicians that offenders who are at a high risk of re...
Juvenile sexual offenders form a substantial part of the sexual offender population and a subset of them will continue offending against the person in general, and sexually in particular, into adulthood. Part of a strategy to reduce offending against the person, and sexual offending specifically, should therefore be to identify and treat high-risk...
This article uses a therapeutic jurisprudence perspective to review the evolution of mental health law in the Western world by examining developments at various stages in history, in particular the 20th century. It suggests that one of the major challenges for the future, from a therapeutic jurisprudence perspective, will be to help minimise the st...
The literature in the field of juvenile offending reveals an ongoing debate about whether juvenile sexual offenders form a distinct group when compared to juvenile offenders in general. This is a very complex question because of the dynamics of sexual offending. When we examined the data collected from the official records of 334 juvenile sexual of...
The literature in the field of juvenile offending reveals an ongoing debate about whether juvenile sexual offenders form a distinct group when compared to juvenile offenders in general. This is a very complex question because of the dynamics of sexual offending. When we examined the data collected from the official records of 334 juvenile sexual of...
Very few empirical data are available in respect of juvenile sexual offenders in Australia in general, and Western Australia in particular. In order to address this need a comprehensive study was undertaken to provide, inter alia, a description of juvenile sexual offenders in Western Australia and of their offence histories. The records of 334 juve...
The literature in the field of juvenile offending reveals an ongoing debate about whether juvenile sexual offenders form a distinct group when compared to juvenile offenders in general. This is a very complex question because of the dynamics of sexual offending. When we examined the data collected from the official records of 334 juvenile sexual of...
Psychological tests form a central part of most forensic assessments. However, the tests used, and the manner in which they are used, have been criticised, especially in the United States. In a survey of 79 Australian psychologists who do evaluations for the courts, we tried to determine which psychological tests they use, how frequently they use t...
Background. Incidence rates of crime and alcohol abuse in South Africa are unacceptably high. Research suggests a relationship between alcohol and both crime and suicide. This study aims to add to the information base on this topic in South Africa. Methods. This is a cross-sectional record study of criminal offences and suicide attempts in 269 admi...
In South Africa there is a lack of empirical data regarding the quality of the testimony of psychologists. In order to fill this gap, 252 South African lawyers were surveyed to determine their perception of the value of the testimony of psychologists, and of psychologists' knowledge, conduct, and adherence to the rules of expert testimony. For the...
Incidence rates of crime and alcohol abuse in South Africa are unacceptably high. Research suggests a relationship between alcohol and both crime and suicide. This study aims to add to the information base on this topic in South Africa.
This is a cross-sectional record study of criminal offences and suicide attempts in 269 admissions to an alcohol...
Forensic psychology is established in Australia. However, unlike in some countries, no survey of forensic psychologists and their activities has been published locally. This paper reports the findings of a survey of 79 Australian psychologists who do assessments for the courts. The results reveal that most of the respondents had post‐graduate quali...
