Eidelson's (2025) commentary misses the point of our article (Walker et al., 2025), which reviews the history of antisemitism within the psychology profession and calls for the American Psychological Association to acknowledge its past and to proactively address the recent rise in antisemitism. Our scholarship is consistent with that of others in the field (e.g., Winston, 2020). We refute some of the commentary's (Eidelson, 2025) specific misinterpretations of statistics we cite and mention recent studies related to the negative psychological impact of antisemitic campus activism on a significant subset of Jewish students. Eidelson's focus on our choice of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, his focus on what he thinks of as our failure to condemn Israel, and his mistaken discrediting of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Report statistics reported in our article obscure the central goal of the article, thus politicizing the issue rather than furthering scholarship in the area. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

[Correction Notice: An Erratum for this article was reported online in American Psychologist on Jul 15 2024 (see record 2025-04658-001). In the article, three sentences and a reference were redacted related to proceedings against a university concerning its psychology program because appropriate context was not provided in the article. All versions of this article have been corrected.] This article calls for the American Psychological Association (APA) to proactively include the elimination of antisemitism or prejudice against Jewish people in its current mission to disassemble all forms of racism from its organization as well as society. In this article, Jews (estimated as 2.4% of the population) are defined as a people with a common identity, ethnicity, and religion as they experience prejudice; their intersection in Jewish identity; the history and characteristics of antisemitism and its current manifestation in public life, academic institutions, and psychology. Despite Jews having made major contributions to the development of psychology as a profession, historically through the first half of the 20th century, Jews were systematically discriminated against within the discipline of psychology through quotas for acceptance into graduate training, discriminatory employment practices in university psychology departments, and most egregiously through the espousing of "scientific racism" including eugenics by prominent leaders in the APA. We describe how historically leaders in the APA engaged in overt and covert antisemitism while the APA continues to do little or nothing to combat it. We then offer suggestions for the mitigation and elimination of this form of bias, discrimination, and hate as it once again escalates in society. We recommend that the APA engages in research about antisemitism, its predictors, consequences, and power; evaluates the efficacy of intervention programs; encourages contact with various multicultural minoritized groups; and disseminates knowledge to educate about the psychological effects of antisemitism. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

The current article was motivated by a case study to diversify present literature on parental grief and wrongful conviction. The authors sought to accomplish this by reviewing available literature on parental grief through the lens of mothers who are forced to grieve both the loss of their child as well as the loss of their personal freedom as a result of being wrongfully incarcerated for the death of said child. The integration of these two topics revealed significant emotional, physical, and adaptive effects of being a female exoneree compounded with the effect of being convicted of physically harming or killing her own child. A review of this information revealed several risk factors contributing to the development of both psychiatric and medical conditions, as well as increasing the risk of mortality in women, and allowed the current authors to propose future directions for practice and research.

Forensic psychological evaluations and expert witness testimony have only been permitted in self-defense cases for the past 30 years, beginning after laws were changed to permit battered women (BW) to protect themselves. These evaluations aid BW in negotiating pleas or arguing self-defense during trial, with varying degrees of success. This exploratory study analyzes data collected from cases of 34 women who killed in self-defense or who failed to protect their children from their battering partner, resulting in a murder charge. Batteries involved in forensic evaluations are described and case data for 12 women are provided. Further, risk assessment tools are described including an analysis of the Danger Assessment (DA), applied retrospectively (n = 26), supporting the validity of the women's self-defense arguments. The presence of other historical risk factors of intimate partner violence (IPV) were assessed using the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) questionnaire (n = 27) and the Battered Woman Syndrome Questionnaire (BWSQ) described in Millen et al. (2019). Many of the women in this dataset present as 'other than' in terms of their skin color or lifestyle (i.e., lesbians, substance users, sex workers, failure to protect children) is inconsistent with the cultural norm of their community. Responses obtained on administered assessments suggest examinees were at significant risk of experiencing intimate partner homicide (IPH). Despite these data and expert witness testimony provided, when IPV survivors commit crimes due to duress or violence they more likely to be viewed as criminals or murderers are less likely to be seen as survivors.

The present article addresses the use of various psychological assessment measures (i.e., trauma and personality inventories) in Battered Woman Syndrome (BWS) evaluations. More specifically, the present article discusses evaluation procedures used to assess symptoms of BWS and associated symptoms as they relate to criminal proceedings when a woman is charged with killing her abusive partner. Presently, there is a dearth of scholarly information regarding what outcomes to expect when conducting battered women's (BW) forensic psychological evaluations and how they differ from clinical psychological evaluations. In the present study, psychological assessment results obtained from case samples were reviewed and averaged to produce BW profiles across several measures (i.e., PAI, MMPI-2, TSI-2, and DAPS). These profiles revealed consistent symptoms of anxiety, depression, somatization, paranoia, and most notably numerous symptoms secondary to traumatic experiences. Further, the present article addresses validity concerns that may arise when the discussed assessments are administered to a BW sample. In BWS evaluations, these assessment results and the expected validity scale-related concerns must be considered in conjunction with all obtained clinical and collateral information to arrive at conclusions regarding women in this population due to the lack of normative test data on a BW population.

Requiem for a Female Serial Killer, written by Dr. Phyllis Chesler, was published in 2020 by New English Review Press years after her phone conversations, letters, and visits on Death Row with serial killer, Aileen “Lee” Wuornos. Though her interactions occurred over thirty years ago, Chesler remained haunted by her time spent with the high-profile serial killer. She says her motivation to write this book was to memorialize Wuornos’ life, deeds, and death, but, in fact, it also seemed cathartic for her; remembering her work on this case was important to help Chesler better understand the complexities of the interactions between Wuornos, herself and the unwavering criminal justice system. Chesler sees clearly how female serial killers and sex workers are viewed and treated differently within the courtroom. Wuornos never had a chance to be understood outside that stereotyped prism. In addition to laying her time with Wuornos to rest, Chesler sheds light on the horrifying circumstances of Wuornos’ life, and how such events can shape the trajectory of a young girl’s life, such that the catastrophes she endured likely contributed to the murders she perpetrated. Wuornos killed seven men, all strangers to her. The first one was clearly a sadistic rape that Wuornos killed to survive his brutal attack. Unbeknownst to her, he already had a record. But, once she let loose her rage, it may not have been possible to contain it again. At least three, perhaps four of them were Johns, who sought to buy sex from her; they were found naked or with their pants in disarray. When Wuornos was finally arrested and headed for trial in Ocala, Florida, Chesler was drawn there. She admits the allure of attending the trial was enhanced by the possibility of exposing the life of a prostitute, as Chesler attended as a feminist organizer and potential courtroom witness, and not as a psychological evaluator or journalist. Without any training in forensics, Chesler found her own way into the case by initially making contact with Wuornos herself before her legal team eventually accepted Chesler’s involvement. After spending time with Wuornos, Chesler organized a pro bono team of experts to testify about violence against prostitutes and a prostitute’s right to defend herself in hopes of addressing the level of complex, posttraumatic stress from which Wuornos and all prostitutes suffer. Yet, for a variety of reasons Chesler discussed in the book, these expert witnesses were never called to testify in Wuornos’ case. In fact, with the exception of Wuornos’ testimony, jurors never heard evidence about violence toward prostitutes either generally or perpetrated by Wuornos’ victims. Chesler sought to profile the ‘monster’ that Wuornos was called by the media (Jenkins, 2003), a task that took her years to complete. Chesler, a prolific author herself, sought guides for this task. Of all the male and female serial killers she considered, only a handful stuck out as meaningful to her as reminiscent of Wuornos; in particular Ann Jones’ Women Who Kill (2009) and Melton McLaurin’s Celia (McLaurin, 1991). Despite the astounding similarities between Wuornos and FBI-complied lists of male serial killer profiles, as a woman and sex-worker Wuornos did not totally fit their profile. Wuornos was abused in childhood, set fires, had a possible low IQ, had PTSD, was ‘mentally ill,’ had

This chapter describes why the biomedical model is inadequate and even unethical while proposing different models of research for PTSD and trauma including biopsychosocial and epidemiological models, the latter from an ecosocial lens emphasizing public health approaches. These research models permit the inclusion of intersecting social factors into the medical diagnoses as an integral part of the traumatic impact. They underscore the bidirectionality of the event and its impact on humans in their natural environment. It calls for new training of health care workers to be integrated with biological, psychological and social factors that may underlie treatment of victims and those who cause violence, although much of the latter research still needs to be done. Acceptance of sophisticated correlational statistics will need to be considered as acceptable methodology along with carefully analyzed qualitative studies while moving away from the standard RCT models measuring effect-sizes that are ill-suited to clarify the intersectional conditions. This does not mean all our knowledge gathered to understand cause and effect in trauma treatment should be discarded. Rather, the approach to understanding trauma will need both a broadened approach in some areas and narrowly defined targeted subgroups in other areas based on our data. The arguments presented here demonstrated the need for this new research approach by illustrating how the intersectionalities were missed using a biomedical model in discussing the impact from two traumatic events that involve PTSD; child abuse and terrorism. Without effective treatment, child abuse can and often does give rise to other intrafamily trauma and community disruption through terrorism.

When not overlooked altogether, women who kill are labeled as 'crazy' or 'evil.' The complexity of the woman's background and motivations leads to a misunderstanding of how and why a woman could kill another, especially an intimate partner. While it is rare for a woman to kill, and rarer for her to kill her partner, intimate partner violence often predates lethal acts. Frequently, women who use lethal force are survivors of child abuse or domestic violence and their adverse experiences play major contributing roles in their crimes. This special issue on women who kill seeks to fill the gaps in research in elaborating on who these women are, their motivations, other details about their violence, and how they can be aided throughout psychological evaluation and proper expert testimony. Articles within this issue discuss common themes found among women who kill as well as how psychologists may assist in litigation (e.g., consultation, evaluation, and expert witness testimony). Furthermore, this issue discusses women who did not kill, but were punished as if they had. This special issue is published in anticipation of offering further assistance to the criminal justice system and policymakers. We seek to highlight the points in which the legal system has failed these women and demonstrate how clinicians can provide a better understanding of how various psychological and demographic factors contribute to situations where battered women may feel the only option to ensure survival is lethal self-defense.

A client's disclosure of sexual contact with a previous treating psychologist raises challenging ethical, legal, and clinical considerations. Following a vignette that describes a psychologist's thoughtful anticipation of such a disclosure by amending his informed consent form to allow reporting of previous sexual contact with a psychotherapist, these articles explore how the American Psychological Association's Ethics Code, jurisdictional laws, and clinical considerations contribute to a psychologist's decision-making in such a circumstance. The articles discuss ways to integrate ethics, law, and clinical care in the psychologist's response to the client's disclosure.

Several adult and childhood risk factors are associated with an increased likelihood of intimate partner violence (IPV) victimization. Witnessing interparental violence and experiencing abuse as a child are both linked to an increased likelihood of experiencing IPV as an adult. Additionally, relationship factors, including length of IPV relationships, intermittent relationship reinforcement, and having children not related to the perpetrator, are linked to an increased severity of abuse. The primary aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between childhood and adult relationship factors and the severity of emotional and behavioral symptoms associated with IPV. Statistically, the macro PROCESS was employed to evaluate the association of childhood factors to symptom severity with adult relationship factors as the mediator. Results suggest that adult relationship factors partially mediate the relationship between childhood factors and symptom severity. Specifically, these findings demonstrate that the identified childhood factors significantly increased adult relationship factors, which, in turn, increased symptom severity in female IPV survivors. Educating clinicians and medical professionals' understanding of these risk factors may improve the rates at which these survivors are identified and could lower the risk of continued abuse. Additioanlly, cultivating awareness of these factors and integrating them into assessment and intervention programs may be a step toward protecting IPV survivors against psychologically negative outcomes.

Memorializes Eugene A. Shapiro (1919-2021). A trailblazer in professional psychology, Shapiro played key roles institutionally in establishing psychology as a major health profession. He won a scholarship to Rutgers to complete his BS in psychology, and later won acceptance into the doctoral program in clinical psychology at New York University (NYU). He earned his PhD from NYU in 1953. Gene, along with Jack Wiggins, was instrumental in increasing the availability of psychological services to military personnel and their families under programs such as the Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Uniformed Services. Gene helped foreground the interests of practicing psychologists in American Psychological Association (APA), upgrading the Office for Professional Practice to the Practice Directorate. He also helped found the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology at Rutgers University, the first university-based professional school in the country, and was a pioneer in the prescribing psychologist movement. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).