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CODE OF PRACTICE TO FACILITATE THE PROVISION OF THERAPEUTIC SUPPORT TO CHILD WITNESSES IN COURT PROCEEDINGS
TYPES OF THERAPEUTIC INTERVENTIONS
Play/Art/Writing Intervention Methods
62 Children can convey thoughts and feelings they cannot express in speech through play, art or writing (see Appendix 3). A certain amount of cautious interpretation is necessary for therapeutic support providers to make sense of the events or emotions conveyed by the child. However, caution should be employed when the interpretation is fed back to the child or others involved in the care of the child. This will be especially pertinent if the intervention method is being used to deal with the abusive or traumatic experience itself, rather than issues in the here-and-now.
Hypnosis
63 Therapeutic support providers should never use hypnosis prior to or during court proceedings for matters related to those court proceedings. The reason for this is that it can increase the possibility that false memories (pseudomemories) will be reported sometimes with a high degree of confidence (Dinges, Whitehouse, Orne, Powell, Orne & Erdelyi, 1992).
Group Therapy
64 Group therapy that does not focus on the abusive or traumatic event and includes a mix of presenting difficulties and client groups can be beneficial. Similarly, family therapy that focuses on helping the family to understand what has happened rather than focusing on the abusive or traumatic events themselves can be valuable. However, group/family therapy that focuses on the abusive or traumatic event and includes other witnesses or parties involved in an investigation should be avoided.
65 False reports of non-experienced events can arise from children's conversations with their peers, even in the absence of exposure to misleading information from adults (Principe & Ceci, 2002). When remembering in a group, one person's memory can be influenced by what another person says. The information obtained during the process of discussing a memory with another person could permanently distort an individual's memory of an event because our memories are fragile and subject to influence. This is known in the psychological research literature as Memory Conformity (Gabbert, Memon & Allan, 2003).
66 Prior to court proceedings, group therapy that focuses on details of the traumatic or abusive incident should not be undertaken due to the potential contaminating influence of peers. When there is some uncertainty about the event in question, children may be prone to make memory errors if they confuse mental images inspired by another child's account with their own memories generated during an actual experience.
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