Problems of Terminology and Classification in Forensic Psychiatry

Abstract

Within the overlapping areas of psychiatry and law, physicians and jurists have always found it difficult to reach a true understanding. In addition to the barrier of professional language the main obstacle of a common consensus is represented by the contrast existing between psychiatry as natural science and psychology, as opposed to the normative and evaluative discipline of jurisprudence. Psychiatric concepts and terminology emanate only partly from biology. To a large extent they are determined by questions of meaning and motivation, by psychodynamic problems. Misunderstandings might thus result from a transitory lack of biologically based knowledge, but could also represent a fundamental issue. Although psychology and psychopathology are empirical sciences, they are not only and not purely biochemistry or biophysics. The ambivalence inherent in psychiatry, represents a heavy obstacle to the jurist’s access to a science which views behaviour and activities of human beings from a different perspective to the one he is familiar with.