Today we’d like to introduce you to Benjamin Silber.
Hi Benjamin, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
I have been interested in psychology since elementary school. Reading books like Animal Farm and Lord of the Flies piqued my interest in human nature, behavior, and psychology. Although I initially turned to philosophy to better grasp these topics, in high school I learned about psychology and psychiatry.
I recognized that, in many ways, psychology was a means of answering the philosophical questions I had with the scientific method. Rather than answering questions with more questions (as philosophy often seemed to), I felt psychology was the means by which I could more reliably arrive at some objective truth or reality.
In undergrad, I took several classes from a professor who had previously worked at Napa State Hospital. His stories of the interesting individuals he had worked with there fascinated me, and I wondered whether that sort of work might be what I would want to do with my career. My interest began to shift from universal human nature and behavior to the manner in which such behavior or thought processes might become aberrant or impaired in some manner.
When I was given an opportunity to spend six months training at Napa State Hospital, I jumped at the chance. If this was something I wanted to spend my career doing or it did not live up to my expectations, I wanted to know as early as possible. I was not disappointed, and from then onward, I knew that working with that population was where I wanted to focus.
In graduate school, I worked at a private psychiatric hospital, another state forensic psychiatric hospital, and a federal prison psychiatric hospital. At each location, I learned more about forensic psychology and serious mental illness, and with each training opportunity, I became more excited about the work and more invested in going deeper. Following graduation with my Ph.D. in clinical psychology, I completed a forensic postdoctoral fellowship at the Arkansas State Hospital in Little Rock.
I was then hired on as one of the forensic evaluators at the state hospital which I continue to do today. Soon after becoming licensed, I also began my own forensic psychology private practice and later became board certified in forensic psychology. Due to the nature of the necessary training and education, it has been a long road but a highly rewarding one.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Graduate school was full of obstacles and challenges. The point of beginning my bachelor’s in psychology to the time of licensure when I completed my postdoctoral fellowship was 11 years.
Eleven years gives ample time for a variety of obstacles and challenges to emerge. Perhaps the greatest was my master’s thesis and my doctoral dissertation. Both were quite extensive and involved as I was working on a large-scale longitudinal study with approximately 100,000 participants and over 1,000 variables. The scale posed some daunting challenges, but I was ultimately able to successfully defend both on time (or early) and move forward with my education.
Although difficult, the challenges proved to be valuable as they taught important lessons and instilled the training and education necessary for later independent practice.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Expert Psychological Evaluations?
Expert Psychological Evaluations is a forensic psychology private practice. Forensic psychology is often referred to as the intersection between psychology and the law.
When a legal question involves aspects of psychology/mental health/human behavior, legal decision-makers (judges, juries, attorneys, government agencies, HR departments, etc.) often turn to forensic psychologists or psychiatrists for their expertise. These legal decision-makers can then utilize the expert information provided by the forensic psychologist or psychiatrist in their decision-making process.
Common examples of forensic evaluations include:
1. Fitness to proceed (determining whether an individual is mentally able to move forward with criminal legal proceedings).
2. Criminal responsibility (determining whether an individual is criminally responsible or “insane” for their actions at the time of the alleged offense).
3. Personal injury (determining whether an individual has been psychologically harmed and related issues such as what caused the harm, what the impact of the harm might be, or whether standards of care may have been violated which led to such harm).
4. Fitness for duty (determining whether an individual is psychologically able to safely and effectively work in their role at their job).
5. Violence risk (determining whether an individual is safe to be released to the community/remain in the community or whether the individual should be committed to a psychiatric hospital or other appropriate facilities).
6. Capacity to waive Miranda rights (determining whether an individual was able to knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently waive their Miranda rights at the time they were interrogated).
Expert Psychological Evaluations specializes in these and other (e.g., disability, threat assessment, false confession, competence to be sentenced, IME, parental fitness, mitigation) forensic psychological evaluations. Our practice focuses exclusively on this specialty area of psychology. To the best of my knowledge, we are the only practice in the state of Arkansas to do so.
We also have the only board-certified forensic psychologist in the state of Arkansas. This specialization and narrowed focus set us apart from other groups who often take a broader and more generalist approach to services.
If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
The qualities that I consider most essential to our success are conscientiousness and thoughtfulness. By thoughtful, I do not mean considerate (the more common meaning of the word “thoughtful”). I mean literally full of thought. The evaluations we conduct can have significant and life-changing implications for all involved in and related to the case.
This includes the person being evaluated but also their family, friends, employer, coworkers, victim, victim’s family, individuals in the court, etc. Often one or more individuals’ rights and/or safety and wellbeing are at stake. The consequences of our opinions are far-reaching and substantial. It is therefore important that we recognize that weight and its significance by being both conscientious and thoughtful in every aspect of our evaluations.
From this conscientiousness and thoughtfulness come many other necessary and important qualities (e.g., critical thinking, thoroughness, diligence, excellence in synthesis and application of data, etc.).
Contact Info:
- Email: benjamin.silber@psychological-evaluations.com
- Website: https://www.psychological-evaluations.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/forensic_psychology_community/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ExpertPsychologicalEvaluations
Image Credits
Margaret Podkova
