Forensic Interviewing - Professor Charl Vorster
Forensic Interviewing
INDEX
Featured Article
- Personality Catagories vs Inter-Psychic Approach to Interviewing
- Expected outcomes
- Training available in South Africa
Professor Charl Vorster
Professor Charl Vorster did his undergraduate studies at the Universities of the Free State and Pretoria. He obtained his Master's and Doctoral qualifications in Clinical Psychology at the University of South Africa and has been registered as a Clinical Psychologist since 1976. For the past thirty years he has been training clinical psychologists at Master's and Doctoral levels at the University of South Africa, University of Johannesburg, University of Namibia and the University of Limpopo.
He has presented leadership and teambuilding workshops for the corporate sector for more than twenty years and is the senior associate in a forensic psychology practice.
He has also presented training workshops in forensic psychology for a number of years and is a specialist in strategic interpersonal communication and behaviour change.
Forensic Interviewing - Professor Charl Vorster
The fact that effective interviewing is of paramount importance within the context of forensic investigations is increasingly being realized. Expert forensic interviewing is thus rapidly developing into a speciallized field of its own.
Personality Categories vs Inter-Psychic Approach to Interviewing
Traditionally an attempt was made to place interviewees into certain personality categories and then to apply certain matching interviewing strategies in order to extract wanted information. This, by and large, proved to be a rather fruitless exercise because people simply would not fit into the personality boxes designed for them.
More recently a paradigm shift took place from what can be termed an "intra-psychic" approach (personality classifications etc.) to an "inter-psychic" approach where emphasis is placed on patterns of interaction between individuals, and as such, between interviewer and interviewee. This opened up the possibility of a scientific study of observable behaviour patterns with predictable outcomes.
When two individuals engage in conversation with each other (such as interviewing) a circular pattern of action and reaction is set in motion. This pattern significantly determines their experiences of each other and their behaviour during this conversation. Both participants actually co-determine each other's experiences and behaviour. Not only are the participants not as fully in control of themselves and their behaviour as they typically would believe, but they are also actively and continuously co-determine each other's actions and reactions without even being fully aware of it!
Expected outcomes
Within the context of forensic interviewing, basically on of two outcomes can be expected:
- Either the interviewer will be mobilizing co-operation and complaince or;
- he/she will be alternatively be mobilizing resistance and non-compliance.
The trained and skilled interviewer should be able to recognize escalating patterns of resistance and timeously change his or her strategic approach to steer the interview in a more optimal direction. This requires expert training.
Training available in South Africa
At present the only training within this paradigm available in South Africa is at the University of North West in Potchefstroom where training in forensic interviewing forms a sub section of the Masters Course in Forensic Accounting. This is, at present, only an introductory course and more advanced training should eventually be offered that will equip an interviewer to exercise a considerable control over the outcome of his or her interviewing.
