Expert Mental Health Opinions

Courtroom experts provide judges and juries with evidence qualified by knowledge, skills, experience, training, and education. Mental health professionals, in particular, shed light on fraught questions like violence, sex, addiction, custody, and other value-laden issues. This work requires them to make connections between what constitutes disease and how the law recognizes it, though there is no universal guidance linking the two. Under oath, these experts are asked to assert "reasonable scientific certainty^"--a legal term about truth and belief rooted in the philosophical question of how we derive knowledge. Expert Mental Health Opinions: From Inquiry to Knowledge explores the methods of science and philosophy that build toward expertise. Drawing from the perspectives of dozens of international mental health practitioners, the book outlines the evolution of a psychiatric theory of knowledge, explores where this theory may falter, and charts developing frameworks of knowledge in forensic mental health. These distinct viewpoints create a multifaceted view of the epistemological debates among forensic professionals to determine how they come to know what they know. Drawing from statutes, professional standards, and legal precedents, alongside medical knowledge, behavioral science, ethics, and philosophy, Expert Mental Health Opinions is a significant contribution to an ongoing discussion that affects all legal systems which require expert testimony.