The Psychiatrist As Expert Witness

Rating:
Summary: An excellent primer for the unethical forensic psychiatrist
Review: This book is gimmicky; yet it's lacks any serious emphasis on substance. As a student of the interaction between psychiatry and the law, I often times find myself struck by the authors focus on the use of deceptive means to testifying.

Rather than treating the role and function of the expert psychiatric witness in a serious and somber manner, this book merely focuses on, and advocates the use of, annedoctal "tricks of the trade."

That such is the case should be particular disconcerting to the ethical psychiatrist, whose desire is not to advance a particular agenda at any cost, but whose true desire is to inform the court/jury via impartial and scientifically valid testimony.