The inaugural edition of The American Psychiatric Association Publishing Textbook of Forensic Psychiatry was the first of its kind, and subsequent editions have raised the bar, earning it a spot as a leading text in this fascinating subspecialty of psychiatry. This new, third edition is the product of a painstaking and exhaustive revision process that resulted in a significantly expanded and restructured work.

Written by two renowned leaders in the field, the much-anticipated fifth edition of Clinical Handbook of Psychiatry and the Law offers mental health professionals authoritative guidance on how today’s law affects clinical practice. Each chapter in this award-winning reference presents case examples of legal issues often seen in day-to-day practice; clearly explains the governing legal rules, their rationale, and their clinical impact; and offers concrete action guides to navigating clinicolegal dilemmas.

This book describes targeted therapeutic interventions, programmatic approaches, and system-wide transformations of forensic mental health services. Interventions include creative applications of a variety of multidimensional and theoretically grounded approaches. These include variations of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), psychodynamic, psychosocial, Risk-Needs-Recovery (RNR) and Good Lives Models, and other approaches.

Forensic psychiatry (the interface of psychiatry and the law), forensic psychology, and mental health law are growing and evolving subspecialties in their respective larger disciplines. Topics included in these fields include a range as diverse as capital sentencing guidelines, informed consent, and standards of care for mental health treatment. This book brings together concise, comprehensive summaries of the most important "landmark" legal decisions relating to mental health practice in the United States. These decisions, along with their underlying reasonings, make up a critical portion of the national certification examination for forensic psychiatry offered by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (ABPN).

This book is designed to help new psychiatrists and other medical professionals confront the complicated legal and ethical issues that arise at the intersection of the mental health and judicial systems. The law provides the boundaries in which clinical care operates. Appreciating these boundaries is particularly important when working with individuals whose rights may already be curtailed (forensic settings, for example).