Abstract
Views on the forensic relevance of depressive syndromes have undergone a change in the course of the past three decades. Formerly, a prevalent opinion was that the depressive rarely lapses into criminal behavior. Extended suicide (forced-consort suicide, murder of the whole family) was traditionally considered a typical form of delict. In the meantime, the spectrum of criminal behavior attendant on depressive disorders has broadened considerably: offences against property, sexual violations, deliberate acts of aggression, even homicide — all are observed more and more frequently. These findings apply solely to those whose state of depression at the time of the crime has been duly verified and for whom short- or long-term depressive reactions to the crime and its consequences have been ruled out.
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© 1985 Plenum Press, New York
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Mende, W. (1985). Forensic Aspects in Depressive Disorders. In: Pichot, P., Berner, P., Wolf, R., Thau, K. (eds) Psychiatry. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2365-5_33
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2365-5_33
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-9447-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-4613-2365-5
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