ANDIn a context in which psychological experts are becoming increasingly relevant in the face of judicial unknowns, the techniques implemented and their sophistication are fundamental aspects to take into account. In recent years, questions related to psychological damage, burnout syndrome, violent emotion, among others, are the subject of consultation by judges with experts in the field of psychology.
Unlike medical expertise, which has various techniques to determine the causes of a subject’s death, psychologists find themselves with an enormous disadvantage: how to approach an object of study that does not remain post-mortem?
The concept of a psychological autopsy is often somewhat disconcerting. The immediate mental representation is that of the psychologist unsuccessfully interrogating an inert body inside the morgue. However, the true procedure involves the retrospective and indirect reconstruction of the subject’s personality and life, seeking a detailed analysis of the psyche without its presence. In short, it constitutes an investigation process that, complemented with other tools, can help clarify doubtful circumstances of death. It will mainly use interviews with subjects close to the victim, the study of the crime scene and the collection of psychic traces (writings, personal objects, documents, books read, among others).
The true procedure involves the retrospective and indirect reconstruction of the subject’s personality and life.
There are discrepancies regarding the origins of this procedure. Some authors place it in the 1930s, as an attempt to respond to the wave of suicides that occurred in New York after the crisis of 1929. However, strictly speaking, the term is mentioned for the first time in the 1950s by researchers at the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center. It is in this context that considerable interest begins to develop in resolving questions related to doubtful deaths and suicides in military personnel.
Uses of psychological autopsy
Its double usefulness can be determined: as a criminal investigation tool and as an epidemiological instrument. In the first case, it intervenes in those scenarios in which the medical-legal autopsy is insufficient to determine the etiology of a death. Its main objective would be linked to the possibility of applying the NASH code, which determines whether the death was due to Natural, Accidental, Suicide or Homicide causes.
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On the other hand, its function as an epidemiological instrument seeks to compile the existing regularities in deaths by suicide, thus establishing risk factors that allow prevention programs to be designed. However, other possible uses and applications can also be established (although less widespread), namely: specifying the mental health status of a person at the time of their death; determine the validity of legal actions prior to death (evaluating whether there was adequate cognitive capacity at the time of signing inheritances, marital contracts or others); evidence possible malpractice (in cases of suicide of people who were under treatment with a mental health professional) and develop profiles of serial killers (knowing the personality characteristics of the deceased to determine the targets of the murderer).
Psychological autopsy protocols
Currently, although there is no single standardized protocol for performing a psychological autopsy, the authors agree that the inclusion of demographic history, psychological categorization and evaluation of pre-suicidal signs of the deceased is essential.
In the Latin American context, the most widespread protocol is the , designed in the 90s by Dr. Teresita García Pérez. It is highly valued given its notable rigor and standardization. It has a structured interview that evaluates 60 different dimensions and seeks to reduce subjective evaluation biases to a minimum. This protocol highlights four areas to reconstruct the life of the deceased: interpersonal, emotional, psychosocial and mental. To do this, essential aspects are determined, such as a retrospective psychiatric examination up to one month before death, the nosological diagnosis, the areas of existing conflict, the relevant signals emitted up to two years before the event and details about the scene of the events.
The MAPI is developed in three stages: work at the scene, with the aim of collecting psychological traces; carrying out at least three structured interviews with relatives of the victim that seek to reconstruct her psychological profile in the most detailed way possible; and, finally, the collective discussion with the professionals involved.
The end of the process will result in a probabilistic expert report that, in consideration of other evidence, can help clarify the possibilities that a person with certain characteristics has committed suicide, been murdered or had an accident.
Another quite new procedure is the. He conceives that we are all immersed in networks of social interaction that can be analyzed. Thus, studying him would allow us to infer the role of the missing element (namely, the personality and behavioral traits of the deceased). Such retrospective evaluation would be based on functional analysis of behavior, attempting to infer a subject’s responses based on his or her general history of reactions to similar stimuli. This model aims at the development of databases that can be studied from statistics, thus allowing objectively delimiting the probabilities that a subject has carried out certain actions.
Psychological autopsy controversies
The field of psychological expertise is a field of great debate, given the lack of validation of the techniques that many professionals decide to apply. Taking this into account, we can assure that the issue becomes extremely more complex when these techniques seek to be applied for a retrospective and indirect analysis that aims to reconstruct the emotions, cognitions and behaviors of someone who is not present.
Other important limitations are the impossibility of replicating results under identical conditions, the subjectivity existing in the interpretation of data, the ambiguity of the process, the absence of rigorous methodology, the lack of control of the intervening variables, the low level of efficiency (considering that it is a procedure that requires a large investment of time) and the impossibility of making conclusive statements given its indirect evaluation nature.
The field of psychological expertise is a field of great debate, given the lack of validation of the techniques that many professionals decide to apply.
At the same time, the lack of validity and reliability of the procedure is also questioned due to the ambiguity of certain concepts (lack of operationalization of terms such as psychic trace, for example), the quality of the source (interviews in which there could be various conflicts of interests, given that they are developed within the framework of a judicial process), illusory correlations (due to retrospective and indirect analysis) and the lack of precision to establish the probability of any particular type of death.
Despite the aforementioned criticisms, it should be noted that the psychological autopsy arises as an attempt to respond to certain judicial questions for which there are still no tools that can provide clear and satisfactory solutions. There are multiple media cases in our country that present dubious deaths without any clarification. The enigmatic cases of and are an example of those in which the psychological autopsy was applied in an attempt to clarify the circumstances of their deaths.
The Hispanic panorama is encouraging, given that the majority of publications in recent years have been by Latino authors. Probably the next step towards greater sophistication is the design of a local protocol that achieves great rigor and efficiency. The context shows us that even procedures with high levels of objectivity such as medical-legal autopsy are limited in some cases. That is why research in expert evaluations
psychological can make great contributions.
The scientific study of the psychological autopsy will provide greater rigor to the clarification of doubtful deaths, managing to reconstruct the psychological characteristics of a subject absent from the service of the judiciary.