Psychiatry and the Law*
| Date | 01 March 1978 |
| DOI | 10.1177/000486587801100107 |
| Published date | 01 March 1978 |
AUST &NZ JOURNAL
OF
CRIMINOLOGY (March 1978) 11 (43-53)
PSYCHIATRY
AND
THE
LAW·
D G
McLachlanf
43
Though the title of this
paper
is "Psychiatry
and
the Law", I
propose
to discuss
psychiatrists
and
lawyers, or even the
wider
field of lawyers
and
doctors
generally. In the
two
professions of medicine
and
the law, there is
wide
divergence in training
and
in outlook,
and
this can lead to much of the
misunderstanding
that
can arise in
our
relations with
one
another, to criticism of
each discipline by the other,
and
to
problems
in giving evidence, especially
where
responsibility is alleged to
be
affected
by mental disturbance. Faults lie
on
both
sides,
but
there should
be
nothing that cannot
be
reconciled by a
reasonable appreciation of the problems each encounters in dealing
with
the
common
factor -
our
patient
or client.
Even
within medicine, for a long time,
psychiatrists
were
suspect as a peculiar tribe, talking adifferent jargon,
and
making
unsupported
statements that often diverged from
common
experience
and
from
common
sense. No
wonder
then
that
lawyers were even
more
critical.
Now,
however, Ithink it can be said fairly
that
psychiatry has
grown
up,
and
is
regarded
as acceptable.
There
never was
any
excuse, though, for the sort of
rambling nonsense
that
delayed so long the
acceptance
of psychiatric evidence.
Doctors should always be able to state their opinions clearly, in terms laymen
can easily understand,
and
those opinions
must
not only
be
understood,
but
must
also
be
presented so that the layman can
use
this
imparted
knowledge
in his
own
field.
The
all-too-common use of unexplained technical terms seems to me a
foolish defence against the adversary system which, for some reason, a lot of
doctors fear
and
resent, perhaps because
they
do
not
understand it. Lawyers, on
the other hand,
expect
us to
be
scientifically prec.ise
and
factual, without
seeming to realize that in medicine,
and
especially in psychiatry, there are few
things that can bel clear-cut black or white -mostly there is an enormous field
of grey.
The
psychiatrist can only exercise his training, experience,
and
judgement in assessing abalance of probability.
Of
course, the
more
diligent he
is in finding
out
the patient's total
background
and
life history, as well as
assessing his mental 'state in the greatest detail, the
more
reliable should be the
ultimate opinion
iiven.
This takes a great deal of time if
properly
done,
and
I
can
recall the surprise I felt on a few occasions when, in
preparing
areport,
lawyers
became
impatient
at my insistence on
repeated
interviews with an
accused
and
with relatives
and
others, to
obtain
the full picture
needed
to form a
sound
judgement. Ibelieve it is mischievous to give an opinion without that
complete
preparation.
In some circumstances I think it is
wrong
to insist on "yes" or "no" answers in
cross-examination. It
can
happen
that
either
"yes"
or "no"
could
mislead the
,
• A
paper
read to the Medico-Legal Society of Wellington, NZ on 5 May 1976.
tMD, DPM (Lond), FANZCP, MRC Psych (Eng),
Former
Director,
Dept
of Psychiatry, Wellington
Hospital.
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