Journal Clinical Psychiatry and Cognitive Psychology

All submissions of the EM system will be redirected to Online Manuscript Submission System. Authors are requested to submit articles directly to Online Manuscript Submission System of respective journal.
Journal Clinical Psychiatry and Cognitive Psychology 44 7897 074717

Forensic Psychiatrty

It is generally said that maturity and humanity of the nation can be gauged by the way it treats its socially and economically disadvantaged groups. As per National Human Rights Commission 2012, treatment given to one of the economically backward groups, i.e., people with mental illness, is unsatisfactory in India.  Mentally disordered offenders are still more underprivileged, so services and infrastructure for them are even worse. The area of forensic psychiatry deals with several areas, among which one area is dealing with mentally disordered offenders. The areas of forensic psychiatry include conflict with criminal laws, testamentary capacity, marriage issues, sexual perversions, fitness to work, and ethical issues (confidentiality, privileged communication). Pollack defined forensic psychiatry as “broad general field in which psychiatric theories, concepts, principles, and practices are applied to any and all legal issues. In India, there is very little infrastructure and training for forensic psychiatry. Most of the psychiatric units do not have a dedicated forensic psychiatry ward/unit. Most of the forensic evaluations are conducted by the treating psychiatrist who has not undergone sufficient training in forensic psychiatry training. Hence, in many cases, the treating psychiatrist has to choose between making justice to the patient and making justice to the society. In India, there is a structured training program for psychiatry as a whole, which is a 3-year training program, in which only 2 weeks is allotted for training in the area of forensic psychiatry. Whereas in UK and Australia, there is a 3-year training program specially dedicated for forensic psychiatry which can be taken up after finishing core psychiatry training of 3 years. Hence compared to western countries, we are lagging behind in having workforce in the field of forensic psychiatry. Keeping the same in the view recently, Postdoctoral Fellowship course has been started at NIMHANS, which is a stepping stone at creating a workforce in the field of forensic psychiatry. However other than NIMHANS, there is no other center which is offering any sort of special training in forensic psychiatry. At present, there is only one seat per year for forensic psychiatry training in the whole country, and this looks grossly insufficient. At NIMHANS, we annually receive around 100–110 external students (MD Students) for training in forensic psychiatry, each having posting for around 1 or 2 weeks.

Psychiatry and law

Mental health services and law meet at many points. There are even separate laws to handle the care of mentally ill patients, which is not there in any other medical specialty branch. There are quite a few legislations related to psychiatry directly or indirectly. To name a few, Mental Health Act 1987, Persons with Disability Act, National Trust Act, Juvenile Justice Act, Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, and different acts related to marriage and divorce; these legislations can be grossly divided into civil laws and criminal laws. The 2 weeks allotted during postgraduate training period is highly insufficient to get well versed in handling the legal issues of psychiatry. There are many gray areas in these fields. Mental Health Act 1987 takes more of a paternalistic approach and gives lot of decision-making power to the judiciary, with psychiatrists and other mental health professionals allowed to make only recommendations. Even though the Mental Health Act has made provisions for free legal aid to mentally ill persons, the final authority is with the magistrate and legal aid is only given in “deserving” cases. There are very minimal provisions made for the independent tribunals, and consent to treatment and second opinions which reflect that patient autonomy and human rights have not been given the paramount importance.[6] Mental Health Care Bill 2013 addresses these issues of patient autonomy and right to some extent, but again this comes with its own disadvantages such as marginalization of families of persons with mental illness and mental healthcare decisions in the hands of nonexperts

High Impact List of Articles
Conference Proceedings

Relevant Topics in Neurology & Psychology

Get the App