PTSD in Court I: Introducing PTSD for Court

Verify the scene, report the symptoms: Testing the Verifiability Approach and SRSI in the detection of fabricated PTSD claims

“…PTSD checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5; Weathers et al, 2013) Participants in the feigning condition were pre-screened for any current high distress using the PCL-5. To adhere to ethical restrictions, we excluded any participant (n = 21) who responded with an answer equal to or higher than 3 (Quite a bit).…”

“…In fact, any negative life event can be experienced as traumatic (Resnik et al ., 2008), but not every traumatic experience results in PTSD (Bonanno, ; Hall, Hall, & Chapman, ). Prevalence of traumatic exposure in general public is up to 70%, yet the prevalence of PTSD is approximately 10% (Young, ). The highest prevalence of PTSD is among the victims of sexual abuse (up to 80%; Hall et al ., ) and war veterans (up to 58%; Guriel & Fremouw, ), compared with a general population (up to 15%; Hall & Hall, ).…”

Psychiatric/Psychological Injury and Law: Introduction

“…; American Psychiatric Association, 2013) has removed criterion A2 that the person who had experienced the traumatic stressor had to have manifested intense horror, fear, or helplessness, when it happened, which has been taken as another step in opening the civil flood gates for PTSD appearing in court, as part of a disability epidemic. Several of the articles in the special issue deal with PTSD in Court, especially those of Milchman (2016) and Young (2016a). Both authors underscore the changes in the DSM-5 for the diagnosis and the forensic difficulties presented by PTSD in the DSM-5.…”

“…These four principles for FMHA especially refer to conducting oneself with Dignity with a prudent Distance from the adversarial Divide, with being comprehensive in Data gathering and with interpreting judiciously the Data derived form the assessment. In both his articles in the special issue Young (Young, 2016a;Young, 2016b) emphasizes the need to evaluate the credibility of patient/client presentation, but to infer the presence of malingering only if there is irrefutable evidence; otherwise, using terms such as noncredible or feigning is the preferred approach in court. Several of the papers in the special issue deal with sound assessment tools (being reliable and valid psychometrically), including Brand et al (2016) for dissociation, Kohutis (2016) for PTSD in the elderly, and Young (2016a) for PTSD in adults for court-related purposes.…”

“…Workers in the area need to know the nomothetic, or population-level, research for the particular forensic referral questions that they face in their practice, as well as the best assessment tools available to arrive at defensible opinions and conclusions in court at the individual, or idiographic level. Most of the papers offer explicit recommendations for forensic practice (e.g., Brand et al, 2016;Milchman, 2016;Schultz et al, 2016;Young, 2016a;Young, 2016b) This special issue will point the way toward better practice at both these levels for working in the area of psychiatric/psychological injury and law.…”