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Forensic Evaluations for Civil and Criminal Competencies and Criminal Responsibility in German and Anglo-American Legal Systems

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Contemporary Psychiatry

Abstract

A forensic evaluation to examine a person’s mental state, where his or her mental state is of legal significance, should follow a two-step process. The first step determines whether a psychiatric illness or a serious mental disorder exists at all. Kurt Schneider (1948) formulated an approach in which the following two issues must be determined:

  1. 1.

    Whether a mental disorder exits and how the disorder is to be denoted according to psychiatric nomenclature

  2. 2.

    roceeding from the clinical findings and diagnosis, how this disorder affects the mental capacity in question

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Authors
  1. A. R. Felthous
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  2. H. L. Kröber
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  3. H. Saß
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Zentralinstitut für Seelische Gesundheit, P.O. Box 12 21 20, 68072, Mannheim, Germany

    Fritz Henn

  2. Belle-Idée, Bâtiment Salève, Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève, 2, chemin du Petit-Bel-Air, 1225, Chêne-Bourg/Genève, Switzerland

    Norman Sartorius

  3. Psychiatrische Klinik, Freie Universität Berlin, Eschenallee 3, 14050, Berlin, Germany

    Hanfried Helmchen

  4. Klinikum rechts der Isar, Technische Universität München, Ismaninger Straße 22, 81675, München, Germany

    Hans Lauter

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© 2001 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Felthous, A.R., Kröber, H.L., Saß, H. (2001). Forensic Evaluations for Civil and Criminal Competencies and Criminal Responsibility in German and Anglo-American Legal Systems. In: Henn, F., Sartorius, N., Helmchen, H., Lauter, H. (eds) Contemporary Psychiatry. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-59519-6_39

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-59519-6_39

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-64007-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-59519-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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