Psychiatry & Behavioral Science (page 2)
Scope of Work
Given the scope of the practice, forensic psychiatrists
and psychologists often spend a significant amount of time
interfacing with lawyers and judges, and are trained in
giving expert testimony.
In organizing the components of a forensic psychiatry assessment,
a four-step series of questions is often used:
- What is the specific psychiatric-legal issue?
- What are the legal criteria that decide this issue
- What are the relevant psychiatric-legal data?
- What is the reasonin process used to reach the concluding
ppinion?
A single person may represent several different issues,
each of which may be addressed separately. For example,
a defendant in a criminal law case may be questioned about
his criminal responsibility for the offense, the validity
of the confession that he made to police officers, his competence
to cooperate with his attorney in his own defense, his capacity
to abide by the terms of probation if applied, and the likelihood
of his being dangerous if he were discharged to the community.
Some of these issues address the past (e.g., mental functioning
and behavior at the time of the alleged offense or at the
time of the confession), some issues address the present
(competence to cooperate with legal counsel), and some address
the future (abiding by the terms of probation). The data
collected will differ depending on whether the psychiatrist
is addressing past, present, or future mental functioning
and behavior. One result of the complex nature of these
issues is that there is no such thing as a general forensic
psychiatric examination. There is only a series of specific
psychiatric-legal issues in each case.
