The Psychiatrist in the Courtroom

Over the course of an illustrious career, the late Bernard Diamond established himself as the preeminent forensic psychiatrist of the century. The Psychiatrist in the Courtroom brings together in a single volume Diamond's pivotal contributions to a variety of important issues, including the nature of diminished capacity, the fallacy of the impartial expert, the predictability of dangerousness, and the unacceptability of hypnotically facilitated memory in courtroom proceedings. Ably introduced and edited by Jacques M. Quen, M.D., a close colleague of Diamond's and leading historian of forensic psychiatry, these writings enable experts and neophytes alike to track Diamond's evolving positions while clarifying where current legal and psychiatric opinion converge -- and diverge -- on a host of critical topics.
For the forensic specialist, The Psychiatrist in the Courtroom is not only an invaluable reference work but a compassionate reminder of the clinician's obligation to protect patients in legal proceedings. And in an age when clinicians are increasingly called into court, the book will be no less valuable to psychoanalysts and other mental health professionals eager for an introduction to the intricacies of judicial reasoning. Then, too, owing to Diamond's clinical acumen, the book is a compelling human document. With great erudition and deep compassion, Diamond tackles these and other knotty questions, always with an eye to clarifying the legal and clinical implications of the answers. By combining superb clinical gifts with an incisive understanding of legal principle, Diamond produced a seminal corpus whose relevance to discussions of therapeutic ethics and to legal debates will continue well into the next century.

Jacques M. Quen

Bibliography of Bernard L. Diamond. Editor's Introduction. Psychoanalysis in the Courtroom. The Origins and Development of the "Wild Beast" Concept of Mental Illness and Its Relation to Theories of Criminal Responsibility. The Origins of the "Right and Wrong" Test of Criminal Responsibility and Its Subsequent Development in the United States: An Historical Survey. Criminal Responsibility of the Mentally Ill. With Malice Aforethought. The Psychiatric Prediction of Dangerousness. The Simulation of Sanity. Inherent Problems in the Use of Pretrial Hypnosis on a Prospective Witness. Reasonable Medical Certainty, Diagnostic Thresholds, and Definitions of Mental Illness in the Legal Context. The Fallacy of the Impartial Expert. The Psychiatrist as Expert Witness. From M'Naghten to Currens, and Beyond.