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Psychology Vs Psychiatry Research Paper

767 Words4 Pages

The practice of mental health professionals and the law have been interrelated for years. There are, however, differences between the two kinds of practices, including the values and ideologies of each. In order to thoroughly distinguish between the practice of mental health professionals and the practice of law, both will be defined fully. The significance of Tarasoff and Rule 702 as related to expert witness testimony will also be discussed.
The two most common areas in the practice of mental health are psychology and psychiatry. Psychology, broadly is the study of behavior and mind. Psychiatry focuses on the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of mental, emotional and behavioral disorders. Combined with the law, it is often called forensic …show more content…

Simply put, law is traditional and builds a body of knowledge gradually, based on precedence (Bartol & Bartol, 8). The law is also adversarial in nature, since the leading standard used in the American legal system is an adversarial one (Bartol & Bartol, 26). It assumes that the truth is best derived at when there are opposing sides of an issue who present evidence most favorably to one of those sides (Bartol & Bartol, 26). They proceed to fight in court until one side wins and justice prevails. Psychology and other mental health practices build on previous research conclusions and choose to investigate new scientific findings (Bartol & Bartol, 26). It is also exploratory and objective in nature (Bartol & Bartol, 27). Unlike within the practice of law, psychologists take data at its whole, whether it proves or disproves their hypotheses. Law practitioners simply present whatever data helps win their case, which oftentimes alters and falsifies the research findings (Bartol & Bartol, …show more content…

In the patient-therapist relationship, the confidentiality rule originated in Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California (Bartol & Bartol, 55). In 1974, Tatiana Tarasoff’s parents asserted that the psychiatrists at Cowell Memorial Hospital had a duty to advise them or their daughter of threats of murder made by a patient of theirs. That patient ended up stabbing Tatiana Tarasoff to death. The holding of the case stated that a mental health practitioner has a duty to warn those who might be in danger by their patients (Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California). That holding is now referred to as the Tarasoff requirement. In addition to a mental health practitioner’s duty to caution third parties who may be in danger, mental health practitioners must also report evidence of child abuse (Bartol & Bartol,

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