About Dr. Cunliffe

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Dr. Cunliffe is a psychologist licensed to practice in the State of Florida. He receive a Bachelor of Arts degree in Child and Youth Care from the University of Victoria in Victoria, Canada in 1991 and Masters of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in Clinical Psychology in 1997 and 2002, respectfully, from the Pacific Graduate School of Psychology at the Palo Alto/Stanford University Consortium in Palo Alto, California. He completed his clinical psychology internship at the Medical College of Virginia in 2000, post-doctoral fellowship from Brown University School of Medicine in 2001, and a psychology residency from Citrus Health Network/Florida Department of Juvenile Justice in 2004.

Dr. Cunliffe has worked with forensic populations in a wide variety of settings including juvenile detention centers, adult prisons, juvenile probation, and outreach programs in the community for over 30 years. Specifically, he has served as a Staff Psychologist and Mental Health Director at a number of correctional facilities in Florida and California and has extensive experience providing and supervising inpatient and outpatient mental health services in a variety of correctional settings. Further, he has provided expert witness services to the Florida, California and Virginia courts in the areas Competence to Stand Trial, Not Guilty By Reason of Insanity, Dangerousness, Death Penalty, and Wrongful Death litigation. Additionally, he has also consulted with police and Sheriff’s departments in Virginia and Florida and has extensive experience providing training and consultation services to administration and correctional staff within the Florida and California departments of correction. This has included consultation in the area of wrongful death litigation, fitness for duty, crisis intervention, suicide prevention, and educational workshops on mental health for police and correctional officers.

Dr. Cunliffe is the past Director of the Forensic Psychology Track at Albizu University in Miami, FL and his clinical and research interests include the forensic use of the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised, the Rorschach Inkblot Test, domestic violence, stalking, criminal decision-making, dangerousness/violence risk assessment and criminal recidivism. He has published scientific articles and book chapters in the areas of social skills training with juvenile offenders, suicide in correctional populations, psychological testing, domestic violence and the personality characteristics of incarcerated adult female offenders. Dr. Cunliffe has also provided workshops for mental health practitioners and research presentations in the areas of psychopathy assessment, violence risk. suicide and criminal behavior at the Society of Personality Assessment, South Florida State Hospital, Federal Bureau of Prisons, Florida Department of Corrections, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, Medical College of Virginia, Citrus Health Network, and the Brown University School of Medicine. Internationally, he has presented his research in Capetown, South Africa and provided clinical workshops and presented scientific papers in Milan, Italy.

In addition to his forensic assessment and treatment experience, Dr. Cunliffe also has extensive experience providing health psychology interventions and treatment in non-forensic, correctional and probation settings including smoking cessation, substance abuse and dependence treatment and evaluation, learned optimism, and HIV risk, harm reduction, and motivational enhancement. Further, he has provided individual and group psychotherapy services to the general public in the areas of psychotic, anxiety, mood and personality disorders for the past 20 years in inpatient and outpatient settings.