Redefining the psychological autopsy: A proposal for collaboration between forensic pathology and investigative psychology

Excepting psychiatry, psychology and medicine remain largely separate disciplines. In forensic inquiries, the psychologist assesses the mind, whereas the pathologist examines the body. Both fields, however, actively participate in the same investigations, albeit from different standpoints, contributing to explorations of crime scene dynamics, identification of offenders, and legal proceedings. In recent years, peer review has become a staple of research, because subjecting work to scrutiny by other experts promotes accuracy. Forensic pathologists would benefit from insights provided by investigative psychology, particularly if asked to apply psychology to their testimony, and integration with forensic pathology may increase the acceptance of empirical profiling evidence in the courtroom. Additionally, incorporation of medical findings—such as wound patterns, evidence of range of fire, and cause of death determinations—could add another level of detail to techniques like smallest space analysis. The following functions as a proposal for the incorporation of forensic pathological findings into investigative psychology research and the application of investigative psychology to forensic pathology practice. Cooperation has the potential to extend the scope of knowledge in both disciplines, to increase their applicability to and acceptance in legal contexts and to maximize the probative value of evidence provided in the court of law.     

Challenging the opposition of LGBT identities and Muslim cultures: initial research on the experiences of LGBT Muslims in Canada

ABSTRACT

Many have described the cultural and political opposition between LGBT rights and identities and Muslim cultures. Rahman (2014) has argued that one important way to challenge this perceived enmity is to produce further knowledge about the experiences and identities of LGBT Muslims because they exist at the intersections of this political opposition and disrupt the assumptions underlying it. Drawing on Rahman’s framework of Muslim LGBT as “LGBT Intersectional Identities”, we provide initial evidence from on-going research into the experiences of LGBT Muslims in Canada, based on six in-depth qualitative interviews. Focusing on the tensions between living an LGBT life and being Muslim, we demonstrate that there are strategies for reconciling the two that undermine assumptions about the mutual exclusivity of Muslim cultures and homosexualities. These strategies both confirm the extant evidence of identity processes for LGBT Muslims and provide some new evidence of the awareness of negotiating Islamophobia, racialization and Muslim homophobia as part of the development of an LGBT Muslim identity, and the need to understand Muslim identity in a broader frame than simply religious. In this sense, the experiences of LGBT Muslims present an LGBT intersectional challenge, both to western assumptions about the coherence of LGBT identity and the coming out process, and to assumptions in Muslim culture that tend to position individuals who identify as LGBT outside of their traditions.     

The Concept of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Qailulah</Emphasis> (Midday Napping) from Neuroscientific and Islamic Perspectives

Napping/siesta during the day is a phenomenon, which is widely practised in the world. However, the timing, frequency, and duration may vary. The basis of napping is also diverse, but it is mainly done for improvement in alertness and general well-being. Neuroscience reveals that midday napping improves memory, enhances alertness, boosts wakefulness and performance, and recovers certain qualities of lost night sleep. Interestingly, Islam, the religion of the Muslims, advocates midday napping primarily because it was a practice preferred by Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). The objectives of this review were to investigate and compare identical key points on focused topic from both neuroscientific and Islamic perspectives and make recommendations for future researches.     

Moving along to things left undone

This paper expands on three areas of clinical theory that are introduced and discussed in the lead paper and the others in this symposium. The first issue addressed is the concept of the real relationship as used in the moment of meeting model of psychotherapeutic change. Particular focus has been placed on the past, the present, and the hierarchy of goals in the treatment relationship. Second, the paper explores the concept of implicit relational knowledge with attention to the concepts of transference, countertransference, interpretation, and insight in the change process. Finally, the paper attends to the nature of the “now moment” in the moment of meeting model. Specifically explicated are ways this concept relates to changes in brain organization and also ways the moment of meeting model relates to other psychotherapy models, such as the relational schools and self-psychology. © 1998 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health     

Dyadically expanded states of consciousness and the process of therapeutic change

This paper addresses an intersubjective issue that arises out of our model of therapeutic change: Why do humans so strongly seek states of emotional connectedness and intersubjectivity and why does the failure to achieve connectedness have such a damaging effect on the mental health of the infant? A hypothesis is offered—the Dyadic Expansion of Consciousness Hypothesis—as an attempt to explain these phenomena. This hypothesis is based on the Mutual Regulation Model (MRM) of infant–adult interaction. The MRM describes the microregulatory social-emotional process of communication that generates (or fails to generate) dyadic intersubjective states of shared consciousness. In particular, the Dyadic Consciousness hypothesis argues that each individual, in one case the infant and mother or in another the patient and the therapist, is a self-organizing system that creates his or her own states of consciousness (states of brain organization), which can be expanded into more coherent and complex states in collaboration with another self-organizing system. Critically understanding how the mutual regulation of affect functions to create dyadic states of consciousness also can help us understand what produces change in the therapeutic process. © 1998 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health     

Implicit relational knowing: Its role in development and psychoanalytic treatment

It is increasingly apparent that “something more” than interpretation is needed to bring about change in psychoanalytic treatment. Drawing on clinical and developmental observations, we propose that interactional processes from birth onward give rise to a form of procedural knowledge regarding how to do things with intimate others, knowledge we call implicit relational knowing. This knowing is distinct from conscious verbalizable knowledge and from the dynamic unconscious. The implicit relational knowing of patient and therapist intersect to create an intersubjective field that includes reasonably accurate sensings of each person's ways of being with others, sensings we call the “real relationship.” This intersubjective field becomes more complex and articulated with repeated patient–therapist encounters, giving rise to emergent new possibilities for more coherent and adaptive forms of interaction. During a transactional event that we term a “moment of meeting,” a new dyadic possibility crystallizes when the two persons achieve the dual goals of complementary fitted actions and joint intersubjective recognition in a new form. We argue that such moments of meeting shift the relational anticipations of each partner and allow for new forms of agency and shared experience to be expressed and elaborated. © 1998 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health     

Multisensory-mediated auditory localization

Multisensory integration is a powerful mechanism for maximizing sensitivity to sensory events. We examined its effects on auditory localization in healthy human subjects. The specific objective was to test whether the relative intensity and location of a seemingly irrelevant visual stimulus would influence auditory localization in accordance with the inverse effectiveness and spatial rules of multisensory integration that have been developed from neurophysiological studies with animals [Stein and Meredith, 1993 The Merging of the Senses (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press)]. Subjects were asked to localize a sound in one condition in which a neutral visual stimulus was either above threshold (supra-threshold) or at threshold. In both cases the spatial disparity of the visual and auditory stimuli was systematically varied. The results reveal that stimulus salience is a critical factor in determining the effect of a neutral visual cue on auditory localization. Visual bias and, hence, perceptual translocation of the auditory stimulus appeared when the visual stimulus was supra-threshold, regardless of its location. However, this was not the case when the visual stimulus was at threshold. In this case, the influence of the visual cue was apparent only when the two cues were spatially coincident and resulted in an enhancement of stimulus localization. These data suggest that the brain uses multiple strategies to integrate multisensory information.     

Piagetian object permanence and its development in Eurasian jays (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Garrulus glandarius</Emphasis>)

Object permanence in Eurasian jays (Garrulus glandarius) was investigated using a complete version of the Uzgiris and Hunt scale 1. Nine hand-raised jays were studied, divided into two groups according to their different developmental stages (experiment 1, older jays: 2–3 months old, n = 4; experiment 2, younger jays: 15 days old, n = 5). In the first experiment, we investigated whether older jays could achieve piagetian stage 6 of object permanence. Tasks were administered in a fixed sequence (1–15) according to the protocols used in other avian species. The aim of the second experiment was to check whether testing very young jays before their development of “neophobia” could influence the achievement times of piagetian stages. Furthermore, in this experiment tasks were administered randomly to investigate whether the jays’ achievement of stage 6 follows a fixed sequence related to the development of specific cognitive abilities. All jays tested in experiments 1 and 2 fully achieved piagetian stage 6 and no “A not B” errors were observed. Performance on visible displacement tasks was better than performance on invisible ones. The results of experiment 2 show that “neophobia” affected the response of jays in terms of achievement times; the older jays in experiment 1 took longer to pass all the tasks when compared with the younger, less neophobic, jays in experiment 2. With regard to the achieving order, jays followed a fixed sequence of acquisition in experiment 2, even if tasks were administered randomly, with the exception of one subject. The results of these experiments support the idea that piagetian stages of cognitive development exist in avian species and that they progress through relatively fixed sequences. Electronic Supplementary Material Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at and is accessible for authorized users.