HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Bloom, J. D. Articles by Dick, D. W. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Bloom, J. D. Articles by Dick, D. W.

Commentary: 1982 Was AAPL's Year of Living Dangerously

Dr. Bloom is Professor Emeritus and Dr. Dick is a Third Year Resident in Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR. Address correspondence to: Joseph D. Bloom, MD, Department of Psychiatry, Oregon Health and Science University, 3181 SW Sam Jackson Park Road, Portland, OR 97201. E-mail: bloomj{at}ohsu.edu

In 1982, the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law (AAPL) was a growing and ambitious professional organization. Its membership was a small but vigorous group united by the desire to develop the emerging psychiatric subspecialty of forensic psychiatry within the larger context of psychiatry. The organization was 13 years old. It was devoted to the goal of uplifting the practice of forensic psychiatry in the United States through continuing education and specialty training. AAPL was well positioned to achieve its goal. Its leaders were fairly single-minded and many were strategically placed within the hierarchy of the American Psychiatric Association. Subspecialty recognition within psychiatry and medicine appeared attainable. Then came the United States v. Hinckley case. Every aspect of the case was controversial: the facts of the case itself, the use of the insanity defense, the contradictory psychiatric testimony and, finally, the verdict. Forensic psychiatry was put on the defensive, and at the height of the controversy the former President of the American Psychiatric Association and the nation's most prominent Professor of Law and Psychiatry delivered a simple luncheon speech. As is evident from this article and from this edition of the Journal, now, some 25 years later, we are still talking about what he had to say.