| Summary: | "This manual has been written as a psychiatric-legal guide for physicians. Anyone who seeks to treat the human mind or to diagnose its vagaries must expect to be asked, now and then, to give oral or written testimony to some judicial tribunal. In such a situation, he has no choice but to accept, grudgingly or gracefully, the role of expert witness thus thrust upon him. But when he enters the legal arena, the expert witness may well feel the need of practical medico-legal help. The psychiatrist, for example, may find it necessary to prepare a court report on the responsibility of an accused person, or on some question concerning the welfare of a child. The doctor may be harassed by questions concerning the propriety of a commitment, the competency of a patient, the reliability of an alcoholic. What the practitioner needs is a book which will tell him, among other things, how to examine a patient or claimant, how to evaluate disability, how to measure responsibility, and how to prepare an acceptable legal report. To provide such help is one of the aims of this volume"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).
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