Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Litigation

Category      : E-Books

Author          : Robert I. Simon, M.D.

Publisher      : APP

Year             : 2003

Page             : 269

Language     : English

File Type      : Pdf

Size              : 803 KB

Review         : When the diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was first officially created by DSM-III in 1980, few fully appreciated the impact it would have on psychic injury litigation. Since then, with the burgeoning of litigation, PTSD has become a growth industry. No diagnosis in American psychiatry has had such a profound influence on civil and criminal law. PTSD has been alleged in a wide variety of claims. Just a few examples include malpractice, personal injury, sexual harassment,

child abuse, and as an insanity defense in criminal cases. Some commentators have dubbed PTSD the “black hole” of litigation, no doubt an exasperated exaggeration. PTSD lends itself to litigation. It is, by definition, incident specific, thus creating the impression that multiple causation seen in most other psychiatric disorders does not exist when PTSD is alleged. The allegations that a claimant is suffering from PTSD are relatively easy to assert but difficult to defend because the symptoms are subjective, except for behavioral reenactments of the trauma.