#PPL2019: Day one

ANZAPPL
ANZAPPL
Nov 6 · 4 min read

Wednesday 6 November, 2019

The 2019 joint conference of the Australia and New Zealand Association of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law (ANZAPPL) and the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists is being held in beautiful Singapore. This year’s theme is Collaboration and Challenges Across the Global South.

Click here to view the program and here for the handbook.

Follow (and contribute!) live updates from the Congress using the Twitter hashtag #PPL2019.


Good morning! Delegates for this year’s conference have joined us from around the world — many from Singapore, Australia and New Zealand, of course, but we’re thrilled to also welcome colleagues from elsewhere in Asia, North America, Africa and Europe.


Day one began with a welcome by the conference co-convenors, Professor Bernadette McSherry and Dr Justin Barry-Walsh.

Professor McSherry outlined some of the motivations behind the conference. Firstly, the view that as individuals we often compare our practice with Europe and North America, but we don’t do enough to engage within our region. Holding the conference in Singapore is an opportunity to change that.

Secondly, she said that it is past time to include the perspectives of service users in this conference. That is being done indirectly, through research that involves co-production, but we are also thrilled that the programme for day two includes a plenary session specifically for service users to discuss their experiences.

Organising a conference takes a lot of work, and Dr Justin Barry-Walsh gave his thanks to the many people on the organising and scientific committees, the sponsors and the conference organisers here in Singapore for their work.

We were then formally welcomed by Gregory Vijayendran SC, a partner at Rajah & Tan LLC and the President of the Law Society of Singapore. He described some of the papers that most interested him, which all had theme of restoring patients’ rights when they’re being subjected to coercive and restrictive practices.

Our first keynote speaker was Dr Majeed Khader, Chief Psychologist at the Ministry of Home Affairs, Singapore. His presentation was titled Why Bother about Cultural Considerations in Forensic Psychology-Legal Work?

Here’s the abstract:

Do cultural considerations matter at all in forensic psychology-legal work? Or are we giving it unnecessary importance? Perhaps everything works, everywhere, and in the same manner? Drawing on the work of forensic psychology over several decades in multicultural Singapore, and Asia-Pacific settings, this presentation argues that whilst most concepts and practices work in more or less the same manner across varied settings, understanding the cultural nuances can make practitioners and researchers more effective in their practice and research. It provides case studies and research evidence to substantiate this case.

A few rhetorical questions at the beginning there, I suspect.

Dr Khader had a few arguments in his presentation: first was the importance of considering cultural difference, but he also challenged the predominantly Western view of psychological practice.

We were also reminded that cultural considerations aren’t the only perspectives to consider.


After a delicious morning tea we moved into parallel sessions. Session 1A was a symposium on threat assessment, and the team behind Right in the Head were there.

For the symposium the speakers presented on Fixated Threat Assessment in Australia and New Zealand, and inter-agency collaboration to manage the risk of school shootings in Western Australia.

I was in Session 1B, looking at Closed Environments.

The first presentation was from Neil McAllister, the Inspector of Correctional Services in the Australian Capital Territory. He presented on the first 18 months of his office, its powers and its role in overseeing the correctional services in Canberra.

Dr Jack Tomlin, a postdoctoral research at the University of Rostock, Germany, then presented on his PhD project: developing the Forensic Restrictiveness Questionnaire. For his study he sought to gather the perspectives of detainees about what they considered to be ‘restrictive’ and how they experienced it.

Session 1C looked at medico-legal issues, and conference co-convenor Prof Berndatte McSherry was there.

The first presentation was titled ‘ Making Sense of Chronic Pain and Medically Unexplained Symptoms in the Medico-Legal Arena’.

The second presentation was provocatively titled ‘Expert Panels: Friend or Foe?’, and was delivered by Dr Julian Parmegiani. Dr Parmegiani is a medical specialist in Sydney, New South Wales.


After lunch (and a quick run down to Orchard Road for me — can’t believe I forgot to bring a power adaptor) I went into session 2A: Legal issues and “vulnerable” people. Professor Ian Freckelton presented twice in this session — firstly, on the legal issues and human rights considerations in forced electro-convulsive therapy.

The effectiveness of ECT was disputed by other attendees.

Discussion then turned to a recent Victorian Supreme Court decision which seems to require a much stronger consideration of the capacity of individuals to decline ECT.

The second paper was titled ‘Impersonation scams: an exploration of victim characteristics and the mechanics of victimisation’, given by Dr Carolyn Misir from the Singapore Police Force’s psychological services.

We were experiencing some scam attempts of our own at the exact moment that this presentation began…

Again, Dr Misir’s findings had some immediate resonance…

The final session for the day that I went to was 3C: Investigative Procedures. An illness meant that we only had one presentation in this session, but it was a fascinating one: Nur Izyan Ismail presented on the Singapore Police Force’s efforts to support victims.

In response to a question from the crowd, Ismail said that most volunteers are undergraduate psychology students. We even had one in the room with us (she slid down in her chair when she was identified!).

Ismail said that it’s not hard to find enough volunteers, the difficulty is in keeping them. They aren’t compensated but the program provides training and supervision opportunities to try to entice them to stay.

That’s it for day one! Signing off for now — I’m going to try to get down to the botanical gardens while there’s still a little bit of sunlight. I’ll be back tomorrow for day two of #PPL2019.


Gary Dickson is the communications officer for ANZAPPL. He tweets professionally as @ANZAPPL and personally as @gzy_d.

Follow live updates from the 2019 Congress on Twitter: @ANZAPPL or search #PPL2019.

Want to contribute to the blog or have feedback? Email us: communications@anzappl.org.

The Australia and New Zealand Association of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law

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