Law Enforcement

Capt. Bob Higginbotham (Ret.)

MA BS AS DCH.N MIPSA M.NRAc (Prof.) MIRPA

Founder/Partner H2H

Capt. Higginbotham (Ret’d) serves as a Consulting Member on the Curatorium of the Neo-Renaissance Academy with special interest in high-yield human performance, behavioral analysis and the application of these to law-enforcement.
He is also a Curatorium Member of the American Institute for Psycho-Systems Analysis (AIPSA)

AIPSA

With over twenty-five years of experience and research in high-yield human performance, he brings a unique perspective to credibility assessment and risk analysis

contact@h2h.science

He utilizes a multidisciplinary biopsychosocial approach, specializing in high-stakes, real-time interpretation of human behavior.
He offers expertise applicable to C-Suite assessment, veracity assessment, and trial preparation, including deposition analysis and witness preparation. Drawing from diverse experiences in law enforcement he tailors courses to operational and administrative responses to critical incidents. As an owner of H2H Human to Human, he collaborates with leading social scientists to advance research in human behavior for real-world applications. He aims to improve performance across various disciplines.

Shawn Dodson

MBA

Partner H2H

Shawn serves as a Consulting Member on the Curatorium of the Neo-Renaissance Academy with special interest in high-yield human performance, behavioral analysis and the application of these to law-enforcement
As a founding member of H2H Science, Shawn leads H2H's mission in research, training, and high-stakes consultation, leveraging cutting-edge behavioral science to minimize risks of fraud, deception, and malcontent for organizations. With nearly 20 years of experience in law enforcement and criminal investigation,

contact@h2h.science

Shawn's expertise in understanding human behavior and communication is honed through extensive training through the streets of Real World, USA. His dedication extends to developing executives and professional staff in human behavior and leadership principles, offering unique insights that serve as game changers in public and private organizations
Additionally, Shawn serves as an instructor for H2H Human to Human, imparting his wealth of knowledge and experience to further enhance the understanding and application of behavioral science.

Steven T Richards

FIPSA, FIRPA (UK) FRSPH, FRSA, Clin Fellow NPSA

Steve is co-founder of the Psycho-Systems Analysis modality of Jungian-based psychodynamic psychotherapy and depth psychology. With 45 years of clinical experience in the UK NHS and in private practice, he has been training psychotherapists since 1988. He has extensive experience with governing bodies in psychotherapy

IRPA

and has served on professional committees for psychotherapy& counselling, in the UK and in Europe. With his wife, Pauline, he introduced clinical respiratory psychophysiology, into UK Primary Health Care, publishing on this at the XIIth International Symposium on Respiratory Psychophysiology, at the Welcome Centre, London, in September 1993. He is a published author on psychotherapy, and a creative novelist and screenwriter, having worked as a project manager and film producer in the movie industry, on Jungian-based movie projects; under a professional nom-de-plume.

He has 53 years’ experience of traditional Chinese culture and esoteric practices. He’s a Fellow of The Royal Society of Arts (FRSA), Fellow of The Royal Society for Public Health (FRSPH), Clinical Fellow of the International Neuropsychoanalysis Society (Clin.Fellow NPSA), Member of the International Society for the Advancement of Respiratory Psychophysiology (ISARP), Member of the International Society for Human Ethology (ISHE), and Co-Founder of Jungian Neuropsychoanalysis, and the International Society for Jungian Neuropsychoanalysis (ISJN). With his Wife Pauline Richards, he was Co-Founder of the Neo-Renaissance Academy. He currently serves on the Curatorium of The Neo Renaissance Academy and the International Renaissance Psychotherapy Association (IRPA)
With a background as a Liverpool police officer (1975–1987) and a parallel career as a psychotherapist since 1980, Steven Richards, co-founder of the Neo-Renaissance Academy and a clinical fellow of the International Neuropsychoanalysis Society, is uniquely positioned to collaborate with Bob Higginbotham and Sean Dodson in the development of the Academy’s Human Performance and Behavioural Analysis programmes.

This collaboration has resulted in the further development of the existing ‘H2H Science’ officer training program, by incorporating applied neuropsychoanalytic and affective neuroscience principles, with the extension of these into cutting-edge, advanced behavioural analysis training for high-level agencies around the world

From Authors Original Manuscript:

Neuropsychoanalysis: An Interdisciplinary Journal for Psychoanalysis and the Neurosciences: 47th Bulletin of the International Neuropsychoanalysis Society https://doi.org/10.1080/15294145.2025.2499505 The Liverpool Jungian Neuropsychoanalysis Group

In their last Bulletin report (Richards, Citation2024), Steven and Pauline Richards described how they applied Jungian neuropsychoanalytic and psycho-systems analytic principles to entraining world champion athletic performances at the World Aquatic Championships in Japan in 2023 and an Olympic Gold Medal winning athletic performance at the 2024 Paris Olympics – both by World and Olympic champion Cameron McEvoy. In this bulletin they will outline their further ground-breaking introduction of Jungian neuropsychoanalytic principles to the training of front-line police officers in Joplin, Missouri, USA.

The Richards are partnering with retired Police Captain Bob Higginbotham, MA, who has over 35 years of experience in training and research on high-yield human performance. He specializes in high-stakes, real-time human behavior analysis using a multidisciplinary biopsychosocial approach. His expertise stems from his roles in law enforcement as a use-of-force expert, certified Force Science Analyst, former Sniper Team Leader, and SWAT Tactical Supervisor. In addition, they are partnering with Sergeant Shawn Dodson MA, MBA, an active-duty Investigations Sergeant, Use-of Force expert and Certified Advanced Force Science Analyst. Shawn has over 25 years of experience in law enforcement in positions ranging from internal affairs, Special Investigations Unit and SWAT Operator (Higginbotham, Citation2024)

The program was originally developed by Higginbotham and Dodson, following the riots in Fergusson, Missouri, on August 10, 2014, the day after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown (a Black male) by Fergusson police department officer Darren Wilson (a White male). This event started a debate in the United States about the relationship between law enforcement officers and Black Americans, the militarization of the police, and the use-of-force law in Missouri and nationwide. As a result, Missouri was a ground-zero catalyst for change in police training and behavior.

With a background as a Liverpool police officer (1975–1987) and a parallel career as a psychotherapist since 1980, Steven Richards, a clinical fellow of the International Neuropsychoanalysis Society, was uniquely positioned to collaborate with Higginbotham and Dodson. This collaboration has resulted in the further development of the existing officer training program by incorporating applied neuropsychoanalytic and affective neuroscience principles.

In the new training protocol, the incorporation of Panksepp’s 7 Basic Emotional Systems (Panksepp, Citation1998) serves as the foundation for a scenario-based, meta-instinctive understanding of innate and evolutionarily determined adaptive behaviors rooted in the Paleolithic era (Richards, Citation2023; Richards & Richards, Citation2024).

In context, these involve conserved, instinctive patterns of patrol behavior, toward an officer’s beat (territory); elements of hunter-gathering; predation; the protection of a referent social or community group; and of course life or death emergency decisions that must be made in the moment, with responsibility for those decisions being carried by the officer.

Meta-instinctive scenarios therefore provide the context for Pankseppian drives, and insofar as they are coherent, offer the best adaptive basis for reducing prediction errors (Solms, Citation2022).

Integrated instincts – Panksepp and meta – must underpin the usual cognitive forms of police training, such as legal, procedural and academic, allowing instructors to systematize a coherent approach to dealing with the complex adaptive challenges encountered by their students. Having an instinct-based approach is advantageous in preparing them to deal with trauma and critical incident de-briefing, both of which are routine experiences for front-line officers in the United States.

As this training program expands across the United States, its aim is to raise the profile of affective neuroscience and neuropsychoanalysis, integrating them into a new applied domain of human ethology – that of police training – thus generating further inter-disciplinary development, and post clinical application.

Group coordinator (author):
Steven T. Richards

References

Higginbotham, R. (2024). H2H human to human. https://h2h. science/
Holmes, J. (2020).

Richards, S. T. (2023). 44th bulletin of the international neuropsychoanalysis society. Neuropsychoanalysis, 25(2). https:// doi.org/10.1080/15294145.2023.2264308

Richards, S. T. (2024). 46th bulletin of the international neuropsychoanalysis society. Neuropsychoanalysis, 26, 1. https://doi. org/10.1080/15294145.2024.2344486

Richards, S. T., & Richards, P. A. (2024). Resolve your archetypes and meta-instincts: The ultimate guide [video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/fd1vLKXwBJc

Solms, M. (2022). The hidden spring: A journey to the source of consciousness. Profile Books.
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