PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Frances, Allen
AU  - Sreenivasan, Shoba
AU  - Weinberger, Linda E.
TI  - Defining Mental Disorder When It Really Counts: DSM-IV-TR and SVP/SDP Statutes
DP  - 2008 Sep 01
TA  - Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online
PG  - 375--384
VI  - 36
IP  - 3
4099  - http://jaapl.org/content/36/3/375.short
4100  - http://jaapl.org/content/36/3/375.full
SO  - J Am Acad Psychiatry Law2008 Sep 01; 36
AB  - Civil commitment under the sexually violent predator (SVP) statutes requires the presence of a statutorily defined diagnosed mental disorder linked to sexual offending. As a consequence of broad statutory definitions and ambiguously written court decisions, a bright line separating an SVP mental disorder from ordinary criminal behavior is difficult to draw. Some forensic evaluators reject whole categories of DSM-IV-TR (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: Text Revision) diagnoses as qualifying disorders (e.g., personality and substance abuse disorders), while others debate whether recurrent rape constitutes a paraphilic disorder. We argue that the ramifications of the SVP process, in representing both the balancing of public safety and the protection of an individual's right to liberty, demand that decisions about what is a legally defined mental disorder not be made in an arbitrary and idiosyncratic manner. Greater clarity and standardization must come from both sides: the legalists who interpret the law and the clinicians who apply and work under it.