Abstract
Forensic psychiatry has come under mounting criticism from the press and other medical professionals, largely for its participation in the insanity defense. The author argues that the expertise available from the specialty is of increasing importance to psychiatry as a whole, as more and more legal issues become relevant to the practice of general psychiatry, and should be actively encouraged and legitimized rather than ostracized. All psychiatrists should be exposed to forensic principles and practices during their training, and the ability of forensic psychiatrists to serve as transducers between the clinical and the legal/judicial should be increasingly used to present the clinical viewpoint effectively in courts and legislatures.
Footnotes
-
Dr. Modlin is training director, Forensic Center Mendota Mental Health Institute, Madison; clinical professor of psychiatry and lecturer in law, University of Wisconsin-Madison; and associate clinical professor of psychiatry, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI. This talk was presented as the Manfred S. Guttmacher Award Lecture at the Joint Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, San Francisco, May 7, 1989.
- Copyright © 1990, The American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law
