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• Mental Illness and Expert Witnesses
  

"In 2007, 45% of Australians aged 16-85 years indicated they had, at some point in their lifetime, experienced a mental health disorder.[1]

 

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Mental health can be defined in a myriad of ways, but essentially it refers to an individual’s state of cognitive, emotional and social wellbeing, influencing how they cope with the normal stresses of life and the impact of symptoms on their home management, social life, ability to work, relationships, and the choices they go on to make.[2] A mental disorder or illness then, is a clinically recognizable set of symptoms or behaviors associated both with distress and with an interference with personal functions.

 

This has immediate ramifications in a legal context whether that be for criminal, family, immigration or personal injury matters. This article seeks first to explain how to recognize if a client might have a mental illness, to decide if an expert witness report would assist when representing that client, what type of expert witness will be most appropriate and then clarifies some points for consideration in briefing expert witnesses."

• Psychological Assessments:  A Quick Guide to determining Mental Health Status
  

I was recently asked by a Lawyer seeking to understand how they may more accurately determine if a client requires a psychological and/or psychiatric assessment.  So to help navigate this potential landmine, I have put together an example mental status examination that details the kinds of indicators that a Lawyer might look for.

 NB:  Please note that this is not a diagnostic tool and cannot be used for any other purpose.

Download Mental Status Exam


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• Medication Intoxication

           Dr Peter Breggin

"Over the years as a psychiatrist I've evaluated innumerable cases of individuals who have been driven over the edge by psychiatric drugs. Many of these men, women and children were evaluated for legal cases but others were not. When I was re-evaluating about a hundred of these real-life stories for my latest book, Medication Madness, I began to see a pattern that I call medication spellbinding. Technically, the new scientific concept is called intoxication anosognosia: not knowing that you are intoxicated.

Medication spellbinding has four basic effects.

First, people taking psychiatric drugs rarely realize how much the drugs are impairing them mentally or emotionally. They often do not recognize that they've become irrational, depressed, angry, or even euphoric since beginning the medication.

Second, if they do realize that they are having painful emotional feelings, medication spellbinding causes them to blame their feelings on something other than the drug. They may get angry at their husbands, wives or children, and become abusive. Or they might blame themselves and become suicidal. Often they confuse the harmful drug effect with their emotional problems.

Third, medication spellbinding makes some people feel that they are doing better than ever when in reality they are doing much worse than ever. In one case, a man who was high on a combination of an antidepressant and a tranquilizer happily went on a daylight robbery spree in his hometown wearing no disguise. Another happily embezzled money while documenting it all in the company computer files. Both men thought they were on top of the world.

Fourth, some people become so medication spellbound that they lose control of themselves and perpetrate horrendously destructive actions. My book opens with the story an otherwise kind and gentle man who became agitated on an antidepressant and drove his car into a policeman to knock him down to get his gun to try to kill himself. In another case, a ten-year-old boy with no history of depression hung himself after taking a prescription stimulant for ADHD.

Particularly striking to me, of those who have survived, none of the people I have evaluated has ever perpetrated again after stopping the offending medication. I've had zero recidivism in the cases I have evaluated and who have stopped taking the medication.

Similar effects can occur from alcohol and street drugs. When a person's drunk, he might think he's the life of the party when he's the death of it. And of course, alcohol and street drug intoxication are associated with a great deal of crime and violence. But there is a difference between the effects of taking alcohol or other drugs on your own and taking drugs prescribed by a physician. Most people believe that their doctor would never give them anything that could make them violent, suicidal, or just plain crazy. Often the doctor reassures the unwitting patient that he needs to take more of the drug that's making him crazy."

For the full article or to purchase Dr Breggin's book "Medication Madness"

• Acquired Brain Injury

An Acquired Brain Injury is an injury to the brain which results in the deterioration of cognitive, physical, emotional or independent functions. Its causes include trauma, hypoxia, infection, tumour, substance abuse and degenerative neurological diseases. Its impact is devastatingly varied due to the complexity of the brain, and so differs from person to person. A widely perceived myth is that a brain injury is simply a type of intellectual disability. This is not the case, people with an ABI retain their intellectual capacity, they do however have difficulty controlling, co- ordinating and communicating their thoughts, feelings and actions.

Some common difficulties are....

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• Treatment Options for Clients with an Acquired Brain Injury and/or Drug and Alcohol Issue Presenting with Criminal Charges

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•          Cognitive Distortions

Cognitive Therapy identifies 10 main thinking styles which reinforce negative thinking and negative moods.  See if any are getting in your way.

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