Advances in Addressing Violence: Assessment, Attachment and Treatment

Lisa Firestone, PhD and Robert Kinscherff, PhD, JD, instructors

Persons with histories of violence and/or ongoing problems with violent conduct pose significant challenges for clinicians at all levels of care.  This workshop provides a developmentally informed model for understanding violence and its relationship to severe emotional disturbance, severe mental illness and substance abuse.  This model reflects research showing that violence conduct commonly emerges in the context of histories of adversity/trauma and disturbances of attachment.  A Risk—Needs—Responsivity approach is described for assessing violence risk, factors perpetuating violence, and individual treatment factors.  The afternoon focuses in detail on attachment as a risk or protective factor for violence, and describes an attachment-focused treatment approach to treatment of violence.

Program Code: V615 
6 CE Credits
Location: William James College, Newton

Lisa Firestone, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and Director of Research and Education at The Glendon Association. She is involved in clinical training and research on suicide and violence, resulting in the development of the Firestone Assessment of Self-destructive Thoughts (FAST), the (FASI) and the Firestone Assessment of Violent Thoughts (FAVT), published by PAR Publications. She is co-author of The Self under Siege, Conquer Your Critical Inner Voice, Creating a Life of Meaning and Compassion and Sex and Love in Intimate Relationships. Dr. Firestone is a highly regarded workshop facilitator in the topics of suicide, violence and family relations.

Robert Kinscherff, PhD, Esq., is a forensic and clinical psychologist and an attorney who has been at MSPP since 1999. He is Associate Vice President for Community Engagement with oversight of key service-providing programs including the Freedman Center, Brenner Center, and PATHWAYS.  He is also Teaching Faculty for the Doctoral Clinical Psychology Program and for the Doctoral School Psychology Program.  He was instrumental in establishing the doctoral Concentration in Forensic Psychology and the doctoral Concentration in Children and Families of Adversity and Resilience (CFAR).  Dr. Kinscherff is also Faculty at the Center for Law, Brain and Behavior at Massachusetts General Hospital and Senior Associate for the National Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice.  During 2015-16 he will be a part-time Senior Fellow in Law and Neuroscience at the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology and Bioethics at Harvard Law School.  He is a member of the Massachusetts Governor's Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee and the Special Commission on Sexual Offender Recidivism.  Dr. Kinscherff has previously served as Assistant Commissioner for Forensic Mental Health (MA Department of Mental Health), Director of Juvenile Court Clinic Services (MA Trial Court), and Director of Adult Forensic Services (Psychiatry and Law Program, Massachusetts General Hospital). For over a decade, he taught classes at the intersection of law and psychology at Boston University Law School. For the American Psychological Association, he is a current member of the Board of Professional Affairs, and has served as Chair of the APA Gun Violence Policy Review Task Force, a past two-term Chair of the Ethics Committee (EC), Chair of the Committee on Legal Issues (COLI) and Member of the Committee on Professional Practices and Standards (COPPS). He is a past member of the Editorial Board for the Society on Terrorism Research and has been an invited participant on APA, FBI and RAND Corporation working groups involving the intersection of ethics, behavioral sciences, law enforcement and national security. His research and professional practice areas include ethical and professional practice issues in clinical and forensic mental health practice, violence risk assessment and management, juvenile and adult sexual offenders, serious delinquency and juvenile homicide, aggressive and sexually problematic behaviors among youth and adults with developmental or mental disorders, and severe and unusual forms of child maltreatment. He teaches and consults nationally and internationally.