University Master's in Legal, Forensic and Criminological Psychopathology - Official

There is currently a growing educational need in the field of Legal, Forensic and Criminological Psychopathology among professionals who exercise their profession in areas related to Mental Health. As an individual starting off in professional practice, everyone who undertakes their work in the field of legal medicine or must intervene in the forensic field as specialists and deal with different psycho-pathological issues requires special theoretical and practical knowledge of this type of material.

The advantage of greater consolidation and specialisation in terms of dealing with the existing gaps in education, in such a way that those who intervene in one way or another operate with assumed jurisdiction in the legal-juridical level in the forensic field can be perceived. With this aim in mind, the idea is to complement the specific technical, scientific or educational specialisations of the various professionals, in such a way that they understand the problems in which they must intervene from a comprehensive perspective.

The academic programme designed for this university master’s degree aims to cover current and future demand for professionals from the fields of Mental Health and Legal, Forensic and Criminological Sciences in the following two aspects:

1. The aim is to provide future professionals with the necessary tools and competences which will allow them to work professionally as experts or forensic experts in the field of justice or intervene in the various public or private sectors which require qualified knowledge of the material: in prisons and hospitals, as members of the forensic police, as court-appointed experts, staff who work in treatment or reinsertion services for criminals, criminologists and private investigators and other sectors which may require it.
2. The aim is to increase the level of technical knowledge and competences for professionals who are directly or indirectly involved the judicial-legal, forensic and criminological fields which in the exercise of their activities must deal with psychopathological issues.

The unique nature of our academic course is based on providing the methodological and practical tools that are necessary for professional development in various fields that are related to each other: legal and forensic medicine professionals, psychologists and psychiatrists, criminologists and professionals from the legal field in general.

Objectives

1. To delve into knowledge of psychopathology applied to the legal, forensic and criminological fields.
2. To learn to apply specific psychopathological evaluation tools according to existing casuistry.
3. To draw up clinical and expert reports based on patients' health and medical history and psycho-pathological tests and defend them at an oral trial.
4. In the criminal field, to know how to attend to and behave professionally with patients who have suffered from circumstances they have been the victim of and subjects who are at a high risk of violence and danger; as well as providing a service involving advising and intervening at the correct psychological or psychopathological level with the aim of facilitating decision-making in a court setting.
5. In the civil field of institutionalisation and disabilities, students must know how to write up the corresponding reports in relation to the civil capacity of people with mental illness, as well the potential clinical indications of institutionalisation under judicial authority.
6. In the civil-family field, students will learn how to write up psychopathological reports for marriage annulment proceedings on the grounds of defective consent; as well as cases of guardianship or custody of minors, in relation to the ability of both parents to exercise their parental role. Knowledge of childhood-youth psychology is also required for experts in issues related to minors.
7. In the field of work, acquiring psychopathological evaluation competences for mental disorders that involve some degree of disability, as well as professional illnesses from a psychopathological perspective, including stressful reactions when dealing with phenomena such as harassment and other situations in which pathogenic factors occur simultaneously.
8. Enhancing their analytical skills and the development of a comprehensive view of clinical cases and expert assessments.
9. Gaining insight into the main data collection techniques used to produce exhaustive clinical and expert reports.
10. Undertaking an analysis of the risk of violence and danger for subjects with non-normative profiles, as well as intervening at a psychotherapy level in order to facilitate their reinsertion, rehabilitation or clinical treatment.
11. Acquiring knowledge in evaluation and psychotherapy guidance for subjects who have been victimised in the field of criminal jurisdiction, whether they are minors or adults, including the victims of domestic violence and sexual abuse.

Who is it aimed at? Prospective students

This master’s degree is aimed at people with university qualifications - with or without professional experience - holders of degrees or graduates in the areas of knowledge of Healthcare Sciences (Medicine and Psychology) and Legal Sciences (Law). Therefore, it is offered to:

• University degree holders from the aforementioned degree programmes who would like to acquire specific education in clinical, legal, forensic and criminological psychopathology which equips them for professional development, or who would like to update or delve deeper into certain areas of knowledge.

Competences Graduate profile

The objectives behind the Master's Degree in Legal, Forensic and Criminological Psychopathology involve the acquisition of the following professionalising competences:

• To learn how to undertake expert reports in legal, forensic and criminological psychology which allows the state of a subject’s mental health to be determined, to evaluate psychological damage, their ability to hold the guardianship or custody of minors or custody of people with disabilities, as well as evaluate the accountability or non-accountability of the mitigating circumstances that modify criminal responsibility (CMRC), and also the credibility of witnesses.
• To acquire the basic and necessary knowledge of legislation and legal procedures to provide the basis for psychological, psychiatric and criminological expert reports, according to the demands of the Justice Administration. The types of CMRC that are included in the Criminal Code will be studied in-depth.
• To classify and diagnose the different mental disorders and conceptualise the various clinical symptoms while taking the various etiology models in clinical forensic psychology into consideration.
• To have detailed knowledge of the main theories of personality which bear the weight of the incorporation of processes and behaviour that explain personality disorders and abnormal personalities from the point of view of forensic clinical psychology.
• To learn how to manage, apply, evaluate and interpret the most used techniques in psychological evaluation in relation to the various psychopathological disorders which are analysed in clinical, legal, criminal and forensic psychology.

Academic accreditation

Máster Universitario en Psicopatología Legal, Forense y Criminológica por la Universitat Internacional de Catalunya.