ABSTRACT
When may psychiatrists reveal the confidences of their patients? When must psychiatrists reveal their confidences? In this respect, two scenarios are involved, namely ‘in court’ and ‘out of court.’
In the in-court (and deposition) scenario, testimonial privilege, or shield law, is designed to protect confidentiality. Let us go fast backward to that part of history relating to medical privilege – the precursor to the psychotherapistpatient privilege that has now been enacted in all states. The medical privilege was an innovation originating in New York in 1828, a time when a person sedulously wanted to conceal from the community the fact that he or she was the victim of some ‘dreadful’ disease that was rampant at the time. In the years following, legislatures of most other states enacted some form of medical privilege, but from the viewpoint of litigation, they were of comparatively little importance when they were enacted.
