NCJ Number
87194
Date Published
1982
Length
379 pages
Annotation
A series of papers related to critical issues in American psychiatry and the law are presented under the following topics: legal activism; the expert witness; family law, domestic relations, and forensic psychiatry; and psychiatric treatment and the law.
Abstract
Essays in the section on legal activism consider a conceptual model for forensic psychiatry, innovations in aiming toward the goals of right to treatment, the right to refuse treatment, assessing dangerousness, and the impact of child advocacy on family structures. Essays on the expert witness focus on medical disability compensation, the historical development of the expert witness, psychological testing as a basis for expert testimony, expertise in psychiatry and civil law, and the use of psychiatry in determining witness competency, juror competency, and competency to consent to sexual relations. Presentations dealing with family law, domestic relations, and forensic psychiatry examine limitations on psychiatric contributions to family law and juvenile justice as well as the historical development of psychiatric involvement in domestic relations. Other essay topics in this sections are forensic psychiatry and family law, the focus of clinical practice in a family court mental health service, and psychiatric contributions to child custody determination. The roots of the controversy between psychiatry and the law are examined in the opening essay of the final section, followed by some predictions for psychiatric hospitalization in the 80's. Other topics in the concluding section are privacy, privileged communications, and confidentiality; consent; invasive therapies; procedures following acquittal by reason of insanity; and a Socratic perspective on how Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., and Sigmund Freud might have worked together. Bibliographies accompany the essays, and name and subject indexes are provided. For individual entries, see NCJ 87195-99.