Consulting
In addition to my
full-time clinical practice, I have spent the last 20 years
specializing in the psychological profiling of corporate leaders and
managers, political actors and forensic subjects. I have approached
profiling from the perspective of an organizational consultant
supporting manager development and organizational change, as well as
a clinician aiding corporate security, an intelligence officer
supporting national security interests and a legal consultant
providing negotiation and litigation assistance.
Recently, this has also involved providing expert witness support to
the Department of Justice on Insider Issues involving the Anthrax
case and psycholinguistic expertise in cases of possible fraud (Ceglia
versus Zuckerberg and Facebook, Inc.). In addition, I
have provided traditional psychological treatment, screening,
monitoring and debriefing services to government and corporate
clients.
These specific
consulting activities include:
-
Investigations, Threat Assessment and
Management: evaluations
designed to help victims, law enforcement and security personnel
develop management, monitoring and intervention plans. I
have also conducted direct negotiations with threatening
individuals and assisted law enforcement and corporate security
with interview and case management approaches. Recent
cases have involved threatening communications accompanied by
frightening substances, live and cyber stalking, product
tampering, threats against corporate officers and employees,
evaluation of the suicide risk of a noted, indicted, financier
for his protective detail and assessment of disgruntled
employees threatening sabotage and workplace violence.
I am also currently affiliated with
Stroz
Friedberg, Inc.—a leading forensic investigation firm—where
I assist them with the behavioral component of their corporate
investigations. (For example, see
The New York Times, August 7, 2005, article by
Tim O’Brien in the Business Section, page 1).
I am also
certified in Critical Incident Stress Debriefing and served with
the FBI’s Evidence Recovery Team at the Pentagon site after
September 11th. Additional
assignments have involved assessment of terrorist risk from
persons affiliated with radical clerics. If you are interested
in these services, examples of executive summaries from reports
addressing such threat assessment issues and whether one or more
people wrote anonymous letters containing threats, click on each
of the following:
Case 1
Case 2
Case 3
Case 4
- Cross Cultural
Political Psychological Profiling for the national security
community: in the past, as an intelligence officer and a
consultant to other intelligence and security organizations, I
specialized in the profiling of foreign political leaders and
organizations. During the first Gulf War, I provided
profiling support to the Persian Gulf Task Force and contributed
directly to U.S. Government strategy and tactics based on
assessments of the psychological state and political attitudes
of Saddam Hussein. Consulting activities for the Intelligence
Community have also included the assessment of the
organizational processes of terrorist groups, and the
development of training manuals and indications and warning
systems for intelligence analysts.
- Research and Consultation
on Insiders Committing workplace violence, sabotage and
espionage: From 1998 through 2000 I led a profiling effort
of computer hackers sponsored by the Department of Defense.
This work identifies individuals at-risk for computer crime,
specific motivational subtypes and describes the critical
pathway these individuals travel toward escalation to
destructive acts. I now provide consultation to corporate and
government clients concerned with cyber crimes and workplace
violence by employees and outsiders. I currently serve as a
Visiting Scientist at Carnegie Mellon’s Software Engineering
Institute where I assist their Insider Threat Team with the
individual and organizational psychological issues contributing
to these threats.
- Research and Development:
I have worked on developing new approaches to the remote
assessment of individuals and groups. I have been
particularly interested in the specialized use of content
analysis techniques to produce profiles. These methods
draw heavily on individual and group communications, including
speeches, interviews, email and other on-line communications.
I recently received four patents for software designed to
profile individuals at-risk for anti-social acts from their
computerized communications. This system is being beta
tested as a threat assessment tool at a behavioral sciences
division of a law enforcement agency and at a computer security
firm as a means of detecting employees at-risk for psychological
problems. Other current development projects include:
- The use of profiling
software to improve online relationships such that a user
can evaluate the frequency of contact and emotional tone of
their relationships, use profiling algorithms to understand
others, produce specific communication strategies tailored
to these profiles, implement these approaches and monitor
their effectiveness;
- An evaluation process to
determine an organization’s capabilities to prevent, detect
and manage employees at-risk for anti-social acts or
other insider activities that examines the group’s HR,
security and management assets from employee screening
through termination;
- Through Carnegie Mellon’s
Software Engineering Institute, a video game designed to
train managers on detecting and dealing with insider risks.
·
Expert Witness Support:
-
US Department of Justice 2010-2011 in Stevens vs. US: should the
Army have known about Bruce Ivins serious mental health disorders
and taken steps to prevent his access to anthrax—report and
deposition on issues related to Army liability.
-
Ceglia versus Zuckerberg and Facebook, Inc. 2011: use of
psycholinguistic analysis of alleged materials indicating that
Zuckerberg had promised shares in Facebook to Ceglia.
●
On-call psychological support to the Fairfax County Police
Department 2011—provide on-call psychological services to officers
involved in shootings and other violence.
In addition to these consulting
activities, I am an adjunct Professorial Lecturer in Political
Psychology at the Elliot School of International Studies of George
Washington University where I teach a course on research methods in
political psychology to graduate students. This course allows me to
share my interest in cross cultural and political issues with
students and other professionals. In general, I find that my
on-going clinical experience and practice helps me sharpen my
consulting and teaching skills and broaden the range of services I
can offer my clients. At the same time, my consulting activities
allow me to appreciate the complexity of my patient’s cultural and
work life and provide them with additional assistance in this area,
as needed and appropriate.
Psycholinguistics in Forensic
Profiling
If you are interested in case
illustrations using psycholinguistics for forensic profiling, click
on each of the following:
Case 5 -
Detecting Insider Risk and
Deception—a Bank Systems Administrator
Case 6 -
Robert Hanssen at the FBI
Case 7
-
Are Anonymous Threats from the Same Author?
Case 8
-
Russian Hacker Extortion Against Bloomberg
Case 9
- Cyber Stalker
Case 10 -
Relationship Management
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