[Clinical Psychiatry and Forensic Psychiatry: Similarities and differences]

Forensic and clinical psychiatry require very different expertise from mental health specialists who work in each field respectively. Despite the fact that classical psychiatric training provides theoretical knowledge and practical skills relevant to both clinical and forensic psychiatric work, the latter requires a quite different understanding of doctor-patient relationship, ethic-development and legally oriented practice to be developed. Almost all researchers or opinion leaders in forensic psychiatry agree that, in this distinguished area, specific principles and characteristics apply: the forensic psychiatrist supports mainly the legal system rather than the patient, he needs to develop new interview techniques and a new database of knowledge in order to deal with the "psycho-legal" questions to be answered, and he also needs to avoid psychiatric jargon and adjust his terminology to terms understandable by the legal profession. At the same time forensic psychiatrists should be ready to confront the examinees with contradictory information they may provide and contact third parties to check the validity of their impressions, keeping in mind the probability of malingering or other reasons behind observed behaviours. Moreover the conclusions presented by the forensic psychiatrist to the courts need to be, to a certain degree, safe results based on his observations, examinations and theoretical scientific knowledge, despite the fact that he is frequently asked to comment on issues concerning the past or the future. Finally confidentiality issues are irrelevant to forensic work and the inevitable distribution of reports to all involved parties may result, in some cases, to questioning of the expert witness's professional opinion and his involvement in disciplinary or penal prosecution. All the above require an appropriate training for psychiatrists involved in forensic work, as well as their familiarization with basic legal knowledge and the ethical code relevant to this exceptional field of work.