Article archive / December 2017
Originally published: . Volume 8, No. 12. Source pages: 14.
The Right Wrong Thing by Ellen Kirschman
Penelope Dralle, PhD Consulting Clinical Psychologist ABPP in Police & Public Safety Psychology
Ellen Kirschman is a clinical psychologist who worked for a number of years as a police psychologist. She authored the self-help book for police officers and their families titled, I Love a Cop: What Police Families Need to Know, which she revised in 2006. She is now the author of a series of novels about Dot Meyerhoff, a clinical psychologist working with police departments. In Burying Ben, the first of her series, she walks the reader through the professional and ethical issues surrounding psychological screening and evaluation of police candidates. The story is captivating and the dialogue is well written. Another of her novels, The Fifth Reflection, featuring police psychologist, Dr. Dot Meyerhoff, follows the investigation of a missing child and the impact of the investigation on the detective and his family. In her novel, The Right Wrong Thing, she tracks the police psychologist working with an officer involved in the shooting of an unarmed teenager. Dr. Krischman tells her stories with an eye to the details of psychological practice in real time and involves the reader in the ethical conundrums faced by the characters without being boring or pedantic. Her books are fun and easy to read and provide an overview of many aspects of this relatively new specialty area of psychology. Dr. Kirschman received her certification by the American Board of Professional Psychology as a Police and Public Safety Psychologist.
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