Good lecture to an end

Been to the last of my favorite lectures - the criminal psychology, something that I've enjoyed immensely. Not just because the lecturer is pretty and knows very well how to lecture - the way she talks I manage to type fully formed sentences in my notes. I'm a good typist, but sometimes they lecture too quickly and the words are so smart and long I skip vowels or their forms and adjectives entirely. But mostly, it's a subject matter that gets to me, because it's full of stories and things I can relate to. There was a lecture about security agency management, which was also fun and good, but I didn't see any of myself in that area. Pathology of the mind, however, well, that's just right up my alley, innit?

I can now name all the stages of stress/trauma that I went through last week, plus all their consequences in timely order :D  health issues are still ongoing *cough*cough*sneeze*sneeze*

There were several chapters that hit home. Not so much trauma and stress of police force employees, as we are taught to manage such organizations, but also the history of psychological profiling, how it develops, how it can fuck up the pursuit, how it still has a lot to learn and how you can really make a difference, knowing certain theoretical aspects of an aproach.

Example. Last chapter was the Forensic Interview with Children. From ages 3 up, to teenagehood, there is actually a way to engage a child in a witness report. If you know what you are doing. If you don't, you can not only fuck up the interview, the testimony, the clues, the conviction, but also the kid. I remember there was a movie about a famous case in which interviewing children went terribly, terribly wrong. It's not that kids are bad witnesses, they're just very different witnesses. It's not that they lie or want to bullshit, it's that they are afraid of displeasing you and cannot understand abstracts. So, if you ask a kid: When that mister touched you, were you wearing short pants or long pants? And they will really want to answer you, because you are an adult, and so the answer... but he never touched me... -will not even come into consideration. Small kids also like to poke insides of things with their fingers, so when they put fingers into holes of dolls it's not necessarily to indicate intercourse - also, because they don't even fully comprehend that the doll represents them. And so forth. It's a long list of very logical, careful rules you have to follow and if you know what you're doing, kids make excellent witnesses. But we only know that now, after a long trial-and-error period, which may not even be over yet. Saves us from bad psychiatrists. They can be awfully sure of themselves and nothing you argue will make them see they're wrong in their approach.