ABSTRACT
Lawyers are often to be seen around the courts laiden with books. Psychiatrists, by contrast, seldom refer to books in their day-to-day practice. For medico-legal work there several books which must be available to the practitioner. They are all published in paperback at reasonable cost, and are worth owning. Absolutely essential • The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (1994) 4th edn
(DSM-IV), American Psychiatric Association. • ‘The International Classification of Diseases’, in Mental and Behavioural
Disorders (1992) 10th edn (ICD-10), World Health Organisation. • Mental Health Act Manual (1996) 5th edn, Sweet and Maxwell. Highly desirable • Malcolm Faulk, Basic Forensic Psychiatry (1994) 2nd edn, Blackwell Science. • Medical Ethics Today (1996) British Medical Association. Lawyers and psychiatrists and other health workers need to understand each others’ viewpoint and to use the same language in referring to psychological and psychiatric conditions. While everyone except the psychiatrist tends to have his own idea of what is meant by, say, schizophrenia or depression, in legal matters the diagnosis must be accurate and precise and generally accepted.
