ABSTRACT
The present plethora of organisations and professions involved in the study, care and delivery of services in forensic mental health evolved as a result of various influences over many centuries but particularly over the last two. The origins of the subject can be traced to a range of interdependent fields of scientific knowledge and social endeavour including medicine, nursing, neurosciences, law, psychology, criminology, police, sociology and politics (Forshaw and Rollin 1990). Some of these fields can trace their own origins to antiquity while others are much more recent. Several major contributions were made from some subjects that did not withstand the rigours of scientific progress, for example phrenology (Cooter 1981; Colaizzi 1989), or they led to unacceptable social consequences such as eugenics (Forshaw and Rollin 1990).
