Discussion:
Psychological Skills for the Police Professional
Introduction
Knight to queen's bishop. Rook to queen's knight. As you probably know, these statements apply to the game of chess. Chess requires skill in order to play successfully. You need to know the rules of the game and understand how each piece moves. You need to think ahead in order to outwit your opponent. You need to know different strategies in order to capture your opponent's king. Anyone can learn the game of chess, but to be successful takes education, training, and practice. This is so with most skills-for example, if you want to be successful at any sport, you need to learn the rules, practice, learn special "moves," and, perhaps, get a coach to give you additional training. Occupational choices also require special skills. If you choose to be a physician in private practice, you need to study medicine as well as obtain the skills to build your practice, interact with people, and examine additional research that affects your area of practice.
As with most professionals, the police professional requires a variety of skills to be successful. This week, you focus on the importance
of psychological skills for police professionals, and you examine how the forensic psychology professional can help them acquire these skills. Additionally, you examine the challenges encountered by police professionals and consider situations that affect their behaviors-legally, ethically, and morally. Related to these challenges, you analyze strategies that the forensic psychology professional can use to assist police professionals in addressing difficult and potentially controversial situations.
Questions:
1. Analyze challenges related to training police professionals in psychological skills
2. Analyze the importance of psychological skills for the police professional
3. Analyze the impact of the forensic psychology professional on the effectiveness of police professionals
4. Apply forensic psychology strategies to special challenges related to police work