The future of forensic psychiatry: the suggested Israeli model

The expansion of knowledge in medicine lead to the emergence of specialties and to sub-specialties limited in breadth and expanded in depth. The increasing health-care costs created a three-level model: general mental health workers (general practitioners and non-psychiatric mental health professionals), primary psychiatrists and the subspecialist experts. The paper defines forensic psychiatry as a subspecialty, describes its development and the pros and cons concerning its independent existence. We describe the state of forensic psychiatry in Europe and in Israel. In Israel there are no binding rules regulating the forensic services. The first steps of professional development were taken in the late 1980s by introducing lectures in forensic psychiatry at the Tel Aviv University, creating the Forum of District Psychiatrists and founding the Israeli Forensic Psychiatry Association. We discuss the problematic relationship of law and psychiatry. Most of the requirements for making forensic psychiatry an independent discipline have already been fulfilled in Israel. In order to gain full formal acknowledgement we have to establish appropriate recruitment, licensing and training procedures. The authors present five different models concerning the training of forensic psychiatrists, and describe in details the model chosen by the Forensic Psychiatric Association to be submitted for approval to the Medical Association.