Family Psychiatric Practice: A Guide for Lawyers

The importance of expert evidence in matters concerning the family and children is now well recognized. Legal practitioners and those who work with them need to achieve a significant degree of knowledge and understanding of particular areas of expert evidence in order to be in a position to be able to commission the relevant evidence and, when that has been received, to be able to analyze the opinion and advise the parties/court in an effective manner. This book deals with psychiatric expert evidence as it applies to mental disorders concerning children, adolescents, and adults. The full range of psychiatric disorders is examined. A particular innovation is that the disorders are not considered separately but in relation to the full range of age groups. To an increasing extent, disorders appear to move seamlessly between age groups. The purpose of this study is to help understand the issues as they arise in family and child law proceedings. The final part of the book examines issues such as pathology within the family, the socio-cultural background to psychiatric pathology, violent behavior, the assessment of risk in situations involving the family and children, and also issues relating to mental capacity.