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wannabescout
Join Date: 10/7/2009
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2/5/2010 10:58:41 AM drawing up a profile
After reading through the previous post, I was wondering if anyone has any tips on how to draw up or form a persons baseline. I know one should always observe behavior and what they do and do not notice etc, but are there any good points in order to form and complete and accurate assessment. I find the greatest challenge is "what am i looking for".
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
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Trackerdoc
Join Date: 3/15/2008
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2/5/2010 4:32:29 PM
I don't really know how far you want to go on this topic, but there is a world of information here. I guess on has to address why you would profile people in the first place. I think you profile to predict people better. If you are able to predict a persons behavior, you can manipulate him, understand him, communicate better with him and so on.
first is awareness. the hypnotist on stage and the infant you have in your home are profiling you, just as your dog and boss are. They may not be structured, but they do it by observation. central to observation is using your senses. Listen to what people are saying. Look at their behaviour and body language. observe what your gut is saying. these are the skills that one must have. if you cannot attend well enough to observe, you will never get a profile. That means do what it takes to make observation stronger, like avoiding intoxicants, put yourself in position to observe etc. it starts with attention.
Then you need some structure. this comes from education and experience. The psychiatrist who profiled the first bomber was successful because he was trained . he knew how to ask questions, he was motivated to understand his subject, and he understood human behavior, motivations and relationship dynamics.
There are as many ways to profile a person as there are leaves on a tree, but there are some inventories people use to assess personality and some forensic protocols. I do not have the forensic side of things in my head. give me some more idea where you are going and I will try to come up with some more concrete stuff.
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wannabescout
Join Date: 10/7/2009
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2/6/2010 4:50:58 PM
Thanks for the quick reply. I am excellent at reading peoples instant emotions, however its the complete picture i have trouble putting together. I suppose I just need to apply it in a different way and observe the reasons behind the emotions and actions.
Are there any questions one must ask of a person that can allows for more accurate analysis of a person or a better question would be how does one structure this analysis. Is there any questions you ask yourself when first meeting someone in order to obtain an accurate assessment? Socioeconomic background, gen intellegence, level of awareness etc?
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Trackerdoc
Join Date: 3/15/2008
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2/7/2010 8:49:34 AM
you know my assessment starts with the same things yours probably does and most of it is unconscious. It communicates with me through my gut. a good part 0f what I spend my time with a patient on is just checking my gut with what they say. Of course I have now seen 10's of thousands of patients and the process has taught me that when I am not getting my gut feelings reinforced I usually have an unconscious bias. All people have unconscious bias, whether it is racial or economic or antisocials or dependancy needs or the like. We also have so many unconscious drives, whether sexual or what. The mark of a healthy adult is some appreciation for those drives and biases or some potential for them in myself even if I am not aware of them.
After my gut check starts I make some assessment of their motivations. most of my experience is with patients and so I tend to gravitate toward a medical model of things. I try to figure out why are we meeting for real. what is the agenda. many times it is not what it seems.
after initial encounter, gut check and agenda, I usually start looking for pathology, but that is my job. I can tell you I also usually have a context I have to consider, like the small town, who the person is with, where he lives, family illnesses, drug abuse potential and the like. Anyway I use clusters of personality traits for pathology. you can find these in most any psych book. They are these lifelong patterns that really don't change. mostly, they exhibit some major lack of empathy, some paranoia, some odd dress or mannerism. these personality traits are too extensive to reiterate here, but a basic personality profile for me rules out major personality disorders and gives me a profile of each persons cluster of traits from most major groups. He or she might have a little obcessive compulsive personality along with a little avoidant nature, but that profile would not be one to exploit me but might have some difficulties in an e&E situation. on the other hand, a person might have a little antisocial and some borderline to them and that person would likely be untrustworthy and tend to exploit, just not to the degree of someone with a full blown personality disorder. they tend to be risk takers and have some pretty labile interpersonal relationships with this cluster.
Doing this takes more time than you might have on a single encounter, but if you are interested in forming a personality profile it takes time. take some time to get some education here if you chose a medical model to acquire the base, then you can jump to lumping people more accurately using your gut and the like. This is what I use, but keep asking questions and I bet others with field work could give you some tactical perspective on profiling. I would be interested in those as well.
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wannabescout
Join Date: 10/7/2009
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2/8/2010 7:11:27 PM
Thank you for your incite. I will try to apply the medical model on various co workers for some practice. And myself. Does anyone know of any good forensic resources? Papers, books, journal articles?
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