Musicmystery
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Joined: 3/14/2005
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Interesting career path..."forensic psychiatry" as a legal intrusion...
The Nature and Scope of Forensic Psychiatry
For the reader seeking an introduction to the subject, forensic psychiatry has developed from the fact that certain civil and crimial law cases require information about the mental states of parties involved. Through clinical interviews, record analysis, and testing, the specialist in forensic psychiatry evaluates the mental and emotional factors that may be relevant to a particular legal contest.
A typical case may involve a person's ability to manage their affairs, make a will, or parent their children; a crimial defendant's fitness to stand trial or competence to commit a crime; or a plaintiff's claims of emotional injury as a result of another's negligence. Of special interest are the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral processes pertinent to the legal questions at hand.
Where appropriate, the forensic psychiatrist describes in reports and testimony the nature of any relevant impairments in those processes, along with suitable diagnoses and psychodynamic formulations. As always, the purpose of these endeavors is to inform the contestants and the courts of the psychiatric facts that might assist in resolutions of a dispute. In so doing, the forensic psychiatrist makes a modest but essential contribution to the cause of justice.
A philosophical foundation informs this effort. Human actions result from choices made by individuals who are assumed to act freely in their own interests. The effects of such actions on other persons impose limits on what we may and may not do. The competent adult knows that his freedom to act requires him to exercise certain responsibilities toward others. Broadly speaking, these responsibilities have to do with respect for property rights and contractual obligations, and the duty to act non-negligently in certain situations.
In essence, the forensic psychiatrist evaluates the competencies of certain persons to understand and accomodate lawful obligations to others. Although the potential for acquiring such competency is innate in human nature, achieving it and maintaining it is not inevitable in a given individual's personal development. One's ability to act responsibly as an adult may be derailed by many influences, including symptomatic mental illness, maladaptive personality traits, problematic relationships, and extraordinary circumstances. The justification for psychiatry's intervention into the legal system thus follows immediately from the fact that the individual's capacity to relate to others is affected by his mental and emotional state.
--- L.H. Rossiter, Jr., M.D.
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