Children’s lies and their detection: Implications for child witness testimony

The veracity of child witness testimony is central to the justice system where there are serious consequences for the child, the accused, and society. Thus, it is important to examine how children’s lie-telling abilities develop and the factors that can influence their truthfulness. The current review examines children’s lie-telling ability in relation to child witness testimony. Although research demonstrates that children develop the ability to lie at an early age, they also understand that lie-telling is morally unacceptable and do not condone most types of lies. Children’s ability to lie effectively develops with age and is related to their increasing cognitive sophistication. However, even children’s early lies can be difficult to detect. Greater lie elaboration requires greater skill and children’s ability to lie effectively improves with development and as a function of cognitive skill. Different methods of promoting children’s truthful reports as well as the social and motivational factors that affect children’s honesty will be discussed.     

关于证人证词可靠性的研究

证人的错误证词是导致错误判案的重要原因,因此如何鉴定证人证词的可靠性,从中去伪存真,对司法实践具有非常重大的意义。为此本文从情境、个体心理、社会心理三个方面分析影响成年证人证词可靠性的因素,并在此基础上探究应该采取何种措施来提高证词的可靠性与准确性。     

A Witness Breaks His Silence: The Meaning of a Therapist's Response to an Adolescent's Self-Destruction

I describe the case of a self-mutilating adolescent girl and my dilemma, as her therapist, about telling her parents about her self-abuse. I use two complementary, mutually enhancing relational theories of trauma—Ferenczi's (1933) and Davies and Frawley's (1994)—to help understand the minefield I was in. Davies and Frawley describe certain relational configurations that are typical of trauma victims. I believe that it is not only unavoidable but therapeutically vital for therapists to participate in these configurations so they can know the patient's experience in a personal way. It is also crucial that they be witnesses who provide recognition for the patient's pain and, in so doing, relieve the intolerable feeling of isolation that Ferenczi proposed was the most basic trauma. In addition, I discuss the observation that some people who have not been previously traumatized in any gross way manifest characteristics of trauma.     

The Strange New World in the Church:

Hauerwas's refusal to translate the argument displayed in With the Grain of the Universe (his recent Gifford Lectures) into language that “anyone” can understand is itself part of the argument. Consequently, readers will not understand what Hauerwas is up to until they have attained fluency in the peculiar language that has epitomized three decades of Hauerwas's scholarship. Such fluency is not easily gained. Nevertheless, in this review essay, I situate Hauerwas's baffling language against the backdrop of his corpus to show at least this much: With the Grain of the Universe transforms natural theology into “witness.” In the end, my essay may demonstrate what many have feared, that Hauerwas is, in fact, a Christian apologist—though of a very ancient sort.     

Children's Testimony: A Review of Research on Memory for Past Experiences

This review of children's testimony focuses on research related to memory for past experiences. The aspects of the memory system that are involved in testimony are discussed and the development of autobiographical memory is examined. Relevant research findings are summarized in the context of an information-processing model of memory and the implications of this work for clinical practice are outlined. We conclude that (1) under certain conditions, even very young children can remember and report past experiences with some accuracy over very long periods of time; (2) substantial and significant developmental differences have been demonstrated in children's abilities to provide eyewitness testimony; (3) children can be influenced in a variety of ways to provide complete and elaborated reports of events that never occurred; and (4) even experts cannot always tell the difference between true and false reports.     

Testimonies in the Treatment of Genocidal Trauma

This article describes an approach to the treatment of genocide survivors that addresses both the personal and communal/historical dimensions of their experiences. I begin by outlining the characteristics of massive psychic trauma as background for using video testimonies in the treatment of Holocaust survivors. I then discuss videotaped interviews with perpetrators as an illustrative contrast to survivors' testimonies. The third section explains my position as a psychoanalyst encountering historical trauma and its relationship to my own experiences as a survivor. Following a brief history of videotaping as a medium for recording testimonies, I conclude by demonstrating the ways in which active listening can lead to the revelation of new dimensions of historical as well as personal truth.     

Narrative skill and testimonial accuracy in typically developing children and those with intellectual disabilities

Children must describe maltreatment coherently for their testimony to be influential in court. We know little about how well children with intellectual disabilities (CWID) describe their experiences relative to typically developing (TD) children, despite CWID's vulnerability to maltreatment. We investigated children's reports of an experienced event and compared coherence in CWID (mild to moderate impairment: 7–11 years) with TD children matched for mental (4–10 years) or chronological age (7–11 years). All children included important markers of narrative coherence in their reports. Children with lower mental ages, particularly those with an intellectual disability, included fewer markers of narrative coherence in their reports than children with higher mental ages. Individual markers of narrative coherence, particularly recall of content, predicted accuracy of testimony and resistance to suggestion even when disability and mental age were taken into account. These findings highlight the importance of helping children to describe their experiences coherently.     

The True Wilkomirski

The paper considers whether it matters that Binjamin Wilkomirski's Fragments is not, as he presented it, a genuine survivor account, but rather a fabrication or fiction. It matters in one way and it doesn't in another. It matters because the truth is important: both in general and with regard specifically to the Holocaust. However, that Fragments is a fiction also doesn't matter, for it can be read independently of its author's identity; can be read as being, indeed, fiction. Read thus, the book retains much of its power and quality as a narrative of what the memories of a child survivor might be. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Dream Images

Contrasting dreams of the author, one of an old lady, another of a young girl, are brought together and explored. Swirls of feelings grow out of them, spanning many dimensions. The aliveness of dreams combines the down to earth, personal and social trauma, conflicts between survival and integrity, creativity, mystery, and a sense of the holy.     

Factors Mediating and Moderating the Relationship between Abuse and Commitment

This study explored the effect of intimate partner violence on relationship commitment. The investment model was used to test mediators and moderators between abuse and commitment in a community sample of women. Analyses showed that relationship satisfaction mediated this relationship for physical and psychological abuse, but revealed no significant effect of implicit relationship beliefs. Results could help clinicians understand more deeply the experiences of victims and why they might remain committed to an abusive partner.     

叙事哀伤照护赋能围产期临床人文关爱实践

安宁疗护和哀伤辅导是叙事医学的重要维度。以中国叙事医学理念为框架,围绕一则死胎家庭的围产期叙事照护及叙事哀伤辅导案例,阐述围产期丧失造成的哀伤剥夺如何导致失胎/失婴家庭成员陷入严重的创伤叙事闭锁和心身失调状态,进而阐明如何通过强化多学科团队的协同作用,通过产科医护人员的叙事照护,引领丧子家庭走出至暗时刻,重新回归正常的生命叙事进程。叙事性的哀伤支持是最佳的哀伤支持方式,唯有重视围产期叙事生态,积极开展有效的叙事照护,增强生育体验与生育信心,才能对抗生育率下降的社会危机。