30th International Congress on Law and Mental Health – Padua, June 25-30, 2007
Professor Winick, helped put together seven “TJ” sessions for the 30th International Congress on Law and Mental Health, which takes place on June 25-30, 2007 at Padua University in Italy. More details about the conference can be found at www.ialmh.org . Below is a brief description of the two days of Therpeutic Jurisprudence sessions:
Padua Sessions -June 25thand 26th, 2007
Monday 9-11 a.m.
Therapeutic Jurisprudence and Courts - Moderator: Bruce J. Winick
Judge Gisele Pollack – 17th Judicial Circuit Broward County Court, Florida – Therapeutic Jurisprudence in a Misdemeanor Drug Treatment Court
Drug courts represent the coordinated efforts of the judiciary, prosecution, defense bar, probation, law enforcement, treatment, mental health, and social services to actively intervene and break the cycle of substance abuse, addiction, and crime. The first misdemeanor drug court in the country was established in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, September 9, 2005, initiated by Judge Gisele Pollack. The court was established to address arrests exclusively for cannabis crimes. A participant’s entry is strictly voluntary, enticed by the prospect of charge dismissal. Education and supervision are mandatory. Participants choose their treatment provider from a list of approved providers. At court status checks, compliant participants receive judicial praise and “All Star” status results in less court reporting requirements. Authority figure approval instills confidence, and serves to energize internal motivation for self-improvement. The judge uses “smart punishment” with participants who relapse and/or demonstrate lack of compliance, thereby encouraging behavior modification and program completion.
Judge Sherry Van de Veen Alberta Provincial Court, Canada Entrenching a Therapeutic Approach to Criminal Justice – Where Do We Go From Here
This presentation will deal with steps which can be taken to entrench the therapeutic approach to criminal justice as an additional option added to the traditional adversarial system of justice in Canada. Proposed changes to the Criminal Code of Canada which would specifically authorize judges to postpone sentence in order to permit treatment programs to be completed, and allow judges to monitor an accused person’s progress throughout such programs will be discussed. Changes to the Criminal Code of Canada authorizing court ordered reviews, post sentence, will be discussed and the author’s practical experience both in the area of postponing sentence for treatment as well as monitoring the offender’s progress will also be discussed.
Steps being initiated by the Provincial Court of Alberta to entrench therapeutic jurisprudence including university education in the Faculties of Law and other multidisciplinary professions affected by this approach to criminal justice will be mentioned. There will also be a discussion of proposals to educate the stakeholders currently working in the area of problem solving courts and therapeutic jurisprudence in Alberta and the formal recognition of therapeutic jurisprudence and problem solving court processes either through specific legislative enactments, policy directives, or resolution by the Council of Chief Judges in Canada.
Nathalie Des Rosiers Dean of Civil Law, Professor of Law, University of Ottawa Law School, Canada – The Impact of Problem-Solving Courts on the Community – Developing a Methodology of Evaluation
The paper will report on an evaluation project of a Substance Abuse Court in Whitehorse Yukon (Canada) where community agencies have been invovled in the design of a Substance Abuse Court.
Many evaluation projects of Problem-Solving Courts have been conducted in throughout the world. Most projects have evaluated the impact on the accused, several have also measured the impact on victims and on judges. While some project measure the impact on the community in terms of crime rate, very few have attempted to measure the impact on the social work and advocacy communities. One of the concerns expressed in different academic sectors has been that problem-solving courts depoliticize debates about drugs, substance abuse, domestic violence by moving such social issues into the realm of the judicial management of individuals. The Yukon evaluation project attempts to test this premise.
It attempts to engage the respective communities in expressing their fears at the time of the design of the problem solving courts and in developing instruments to measure the impact of the problem-solving courts on their community power and potential. The paper will describe the methodological and ethical issues raised in this evaluation project and present some of the preliminary work undertaken.
Judge Michael Jones, Superior Court of Arizona, Maricopa County – Developing Therapeutic Courts: The Role of the Judge.
It takes but a single, determined judge to start and develop a therapeutic court. The judge’s role in developing a new therapeutic court is, out of necessity, that of a leader. Articulating and explaining the goals and scope of a therapeutic court are important first steps for creation of a successful therapeutic court. Community support for a therapeutic court is vital; the judge must begin building the therapeutic court team. Judges rarely enjoy performing the functions of a public information officer, but a degree of community outreach is necessary.
Modification of the traditional court adversarial system is essential. Transition of court proceedings from adversarial to a collegial or team approach can only be accomplished with the support of the bench. Once a team process is established, a judge is faced with the difficult challenge to maintain order and case management of these non-adversarial proceedings, after the judge has been demoted to committee chair, or team leader.
Judge Jeri Beth Cohen,11th Judicial Circuit, Miami-Dade County Dependency Court, Florida. Therapeutic models for treating dually diagnosed women in the child dependency court
The Miami Dade Dependency Drug Court was established in 1996 in Dade County Florida, in order to provide holistic intensive services and case management to dually-diagnosed parents who had lost their children due to abuse and neglect. The intent was to break the cycle of substance abuse, untreated mental illness and violence so that safe, stable and nurturing environments can be provided for children. Collaborative relationships among the court, child-welfare agencies, treatment facilities and early childhood development programs are designed to create an integrative program to assist families. Intensive court monitoring and therapeutic court interventions are designed to work hand in hand with treatment. Emphasis is on recovery, health care, parenting, employment and training. Parents are able to develop strategies to stay in recovery and regain custody of their children in the one year mandated by federal law. Very few cases are coming back into the system and children’s mental and physical health and school attendance is improving markedly. Incidents of violence are decreasing and the cycle is being broken. Substance abuse and mental health issues drive the child dependency system. Dual-diagnosis is the expectation rather than the exception. Without a formal collaboration among the court, child welfare, and treatment it is not possible to address the myriad issues families in the dependency system present.
Monday 11-1 p.m.
Therapeutic Jurisprudence & Mental Health Law Moderator: Susan Daicoff
Eric B. Elbogen Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC – Psychiatric Advance Directives: The Relationship between Decisional Competence and Treatment PreferencesPsychiatric advance directives (PADs) presume competence to complete these legal forms, but the link between decisional competence and treatment preferences among people who actually complete PADs is unknown. In other words, are people with mental illness who possess greater levels of decisional competence more likely to document treatment preferences doctors consider appropriate? We analyzed PADs written by N=150 adults with psychotic disorders who were also administered the Decisional Competence Assessment tool for PADs (DCAT-PAD). Virtually all the PADs contained clinically useful information and none refused all treatment. Subjects with higher DCAT-PAD scores included more details in their PADs and were more likely to indicate reasons behind their preferences. DCAT-PAD scores were not associated with treatment refusals for particular medications or with the appropriateness of treatment preferences. Decisional competence appeared unrelated to specific advance instructions (e.g., refusing Haldol) but instead related to quality and quantity of information in PADs.
Bruce J. Winick Professor of Law Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Miami School of Law, Coral Gables, Florida – A Therapeutic Jurisprudence Perspective on Participation in Research by Subjects with Reduced Capacity to ConsentBackground: People suffering from dementia, schizophrenia, and other forms of mental disability may not satisfy the usual requirements of competency to consent to participation in research.
Aims: This paper will discuss whether standards of competency in this context should be relaxed so as to allow consent to participation in research by the subject’s surrogate or healthcare proxy.
Method: This presentation suggests that the debate has insufficiently taken into account an additional consideration — the therapeutic one. An analysis of the therapeutic jurisprudence considerations that participation in research raises can further clarify the debate.
Conclusion: An approach will be proposed for dealing with this issue.Charles LoPiccolo,Forensic Psychiatrist, Bayview Forensic Mental Health Services, Miami, Florida – Should Psychopathy Qualify for Involuntary Inpatient or Outpatient Commitment?Psychopaths have an influence on society far in excess of their numbers. The nature of the danger posed to society by psychopaths is vastly greater than that posed by the severely mentally ill. As a result, some nations have considered involuntary psychiatric interventions for this population. This presentation will describe the development and modern conceptualization of psychopathy. It then will examine the question of whether psychopaths should be subject to involuntary hospitalization or preventive outpatient commitment. It will examine the historical development of legal approaches based on American and British legislative and Common law. It will discuss existing treatment approaches for this condition, and whether they can be expected to succeed on an involuntary basis. The author will then consider the social policy question of how society should deal with this population concluding that criminal justice rather than the mental health system should be relied upon.
Astrid Birgden,Director, Compulsory Drug Treatment Correctional Centre, NSW Department of Corrective Services, Sydney, Australia – A Drug Treatment Prison in Australia: Engaging Court-ordered Participants.In August 2006 a new drug treatment prison was established under the Compulsory Drug Treatment Correctional Centre Act 2004. This legislation is unique in Australia. An interagency program of compulsory treatment and rehabilitation to repeat drug-related offenders is being implemented. The objectives are to: (1) provide ongoing judicial supervision, (2) treat drug dependency with the aim of abstinence, (3) prevent and reduce offending, and (4) promote community reintegration. The Compulsory Drug Treatment Order does not require consent and cannot be appealed. To manage the compulsory nature of the Order, various measures have been put in place to engage the participants. In particular, the Personal Plan stipulates conditions that the participant needs to comply with in order to progress from Stage 1 (closed detention) to Stage 2 (semi-open detention with community access) to Stage 3 (community custody). The Personal Plan, approved and supervised by the NSW Drug Court, is based on contingency contracting principles. A detailed clinical assessment determines participant treatment and rehabilitation needs, the individualised conditions of the Personal Plan are negotiated with the participant, and compliance with the conditions is rewarded rather than non-compliance sanctioned. Therapeutic jurisprudence measures of engagement and improved well-being are currently being administered through independent external evaluation. The presentation will detail staff, agency, and legislative strategies to enhance participant engagement.
Monday, 2-4 p.m
Therapeutic Jurisprudence and the Criminal Process - Moderator Bruce J. Winick
David B. Wexler Professor of Law, University of Arizona College of Law and University of Puerto Rico School of Law, San Juan, Puerto Rico – Therapeutic Jurisprudence and Readiness for Rehabilitation
There is now substantial evidence that some rehabilitative programs ‘work’, and correctional departments are being urged to offer such services. Even if in place, however, such services will not bear fruit unless confined persons avail themselves of them. While there is some research on various correlates of help-seeking behavior, there has not been much work on the role of the law and lawyers on influencing such behavior. This presentation will focus on how lawyers can work with clients to enhance a client’s sense of justice and , relatedly, his or her interest in pursuing a rehabilitative path.
Ulf HolmbergSenior Lecturer, Department of Behavioral Sciences, Kristianstad University, Kristianstad, Sweden – Crime Victim’s Psychological Well-being Related to Police Interviews and Questions from the ProsecutorThe purpose of Therapeutic Jurisprudence is to execute legal procedures such that they promote the social and psychological well-being of the individual involved in a juridical action.
The aim of the present study was to investigate crime victims’ psychological well-being related to their experiences of being interviewed by the police and questioned by the prosecutor.
Eighty-three crime victims completed a questionnaire about their experiences from their police interviews and the questions from the prosecutor. To measure the crime victims’ psychological well-being, the Sense of Coherence form and the Impact of Event Scale was used.PCA revealed that the victims perceived their police interviews and questions from prosecutors as marked of humanity or dominance. Victims who perceived high humanitarian police interviews showed a significant higher psychological well-being than those who perceived low humanitarian police interviews. There were no significant differences in psychological well-being associated with questions from prosecutors.A therapeutic jurisprudential approach in police interviews, characterized by humanity, relates to a psychological well-being that may promote crime victims’ first step to working through traumatic experiences.
Amy D. Ronner, Professor of Law, St Thomas University School of Law, Florida- Dostoyevsky, Confessions and Therapeutic Jurisprudence
In Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Rodion Raskolnikov, who bludgeons to death an old woman, has an overwhelming impulse to confess. Law Professor Amy D. Ronner, who has both a J.D. and a Ph.D in English Literature, combines into this presentation her three passions: law, literature and therapeutic jurisprudence (“TJ”). Some criminal defense attorneys, who have welcomed TJ into their practice, have implemented a more holistic approach to their clients and aim to foster individual healing. TJ can also help us question and re-evaluate the approach that the traditional legal system has toward client confessions. Dr. Ronner will show how TJ can shed light on Dostoyevsky’s novel and help us analyze the enigmatic Raskolnikov, who ultimately decides to take responsibility for his own actions by voluntarily inaugurating and participating in not just the legal process, but also his own spiritual regeneration and re-integration into society.
Egardo Rotman - Foreign & International Law Librarian, Senior Lecturer in International & Comparative Law, University of Miami School of Law, Florida – Therapeutic Jurisprudence and the Legal Response to Terrorism
A key aspect of the psychopathology of today’s terrorism is the total exclusion and dehumanization of the other, perceived as demonic and subhuman. This attitude often conditions the response of legislators and government officials. A therapeutic legal response avoids the perpetuation of such pathology, encouraging instead dialogue, interpersonal communication and inclusion. This attitude can only be implemented through a criminal justice model that recognizes the human dignity of terrorist offenders and conforms to due process safeguards incompatible with any form of torture. . A therapeutic model of criminal punishment must clearly signal the limits of antisocial behavior through the preexistence of precise legal definitions of the offenses and assigning responsibility based and measured by the culpability of the terrorist. Terrorist offenders, however, often fit into psychiatric categories of dangerous delusional and personality disorders. Their preventive confinement should then be limited by the principle of proportionality and subject to judicial review.
Fred Cohen, Professor of Law, Emeritus at State University of New York, Albany. Prisoner Grievance Procedures: An Opportunity for Therapeutic Jurisprudence.
Prisoner grievance procedures are available in every American prison system and range in design from New York’s due process model, with prisoner decision-makers to Ohio’s strictly administrative review model. As a federal court Monitor in Ohio, the author is concerned with the resolution of prisoner complaints about mental health, medical and dental care finding no independent clinical input or inmate participation. Inmate complaints about clinical decisions affecting them are distinctive and should have a separate track to resolution. There must be some independent clinical review of the challenged clinicians’ decisions and a participatory role for the grievant. Such a change should enhance inmate self-worth, increase inmate satisfaction beyond simply achieving the desired result, diminish inmate cynicism, and perhaps enhance the rehabilitative environment. While in the early stages of developing a model grievance process for clinical challenges, no comparable model or set of standards have been located.
Monday, 4-6 p.m.Therapeutic Jurisprudence and Families and Children,Moderator: Bruce J. Winick
Robert Madden, Professor of Social Work, Saint Joseph’s College, Hartford, Connecticut – Family Systems and the Law
Family systems theory has become well established in the mental health disciplines, particularly the social work field. Legal professionals have been slower to recognize the value of this theory to enhance the effectiveness of legal practice. Over the past decade, however, increased legal publications have appeared that integrate systems thinking, both in terms of demonstrating a conceptual understanding of the theory and applying it to particular social problems. These developments have coincided with the growth of therapeutic jurisprudence. Family systems theory can provide a foundation for working with families in the legal system, reexamining legal structures and procedures, and supporting research regarding the outcomes of legal interactions. When the professional judgment of lawyers is based on insights from family systems theory, the result will be more therapeutic outcomes for all who are involved in the legal system.
Jennifer Zawid, Assistant Professor of Clinical Legal Education, University of Miami, Florida – The Therapeutic Divorce: A Collaborative Law Primer
This session will explore the potentially transformative effect that collaborative law – a process wherein the parties and their attorneys pledge to work together toward the goal of reaching a comprehensive settlement of all issues without the possibility of litigation – can have on divorce and child custody cases. By simply participating in the collaborative process, the parties develop enhanced coping and problem-solving skills that allow them to avoid post-divorce litigation and to co-parent more effectively. The session will also discuss the benefits of collaborative law over other forms of alternative dispute resolution, most prominently mediation; and explore how a collaborative law practice can improve an attorney’s professional well-being by fostering better client and professional relationships. Finally, the session will consider the evolution and application of the collaborative law model outside the family court arena in civil disputes involving medical malpractice and other professional negligence claims.
Annette Vandermerwe, Associate Professor, University of Pretoria, South Africa – Addressing Harm: The Role of Victim Impact Statements
Victims in child sexual abuse cases, especially boys, often become perpetrators of sexual offences themselves in order to regain a sense of power. In the case of girls, they often end up in other abusive relationships or are isolated from intimate relationships. Despite the fact that there is a new focus on the victim (introduced by restorative justice movements and sanctioned by courts, draft legislation and a recent Victims’ Charter in South Africa), the use of impact evidence in courts for sentencing purposes is still approached in a haphazard way. In addition, counseling services for victims are either nonexistent, are offered in an inconsistent way or are not readily accessible. Recent case studies indicate that when the judicial officer is educated via a well prepared victim impact statement about the harm caused by rape/ indecent assault of children, the court has sanctioned counseling. This enabled the behavioural scientist involved to arrange therapy for the child. Judicial officers should thus also in this regard recognise the role that they can play in addressing victims’ harm and contribute to curbing the long-lasting effects of child sexual abuse.
Caroline Nicholson, Professor of Law, University of Pretoria, South Africa The Anti-Therapeutic Effects of South Africa’s Labor Laws on Minors
HIV/AIDS is devastating the SA population leaving many child-headed households. These households are often dependent on income generated by children for their survival. The SA labour laws are such that they severely limit the ability of children to find jobs. For this reason many are forced into the sex-trade and other unregulated areas of the labour force, denying them any protections and condemning them and their families to pervasive poverty, lack of education and a denial of human rights and dignity. This paper explores the value of laws that condemn those they purport to protect to a life without dignity.
Babara Babb, Associate Professor of Law & Director, Center for Families, Children & the Courts, University of Baltimore, Maryland – An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Design of Unified Family courts: Incorporating an Ethic of Care
Background: Family law decision making should reflect a behavioral sciences paradigm known as the ecology of human development and a therapeutic perspective. This paper proposes that the ideal structure within which to decide family law matters is a unified family court. The general characteristics of this model will be discussed, including the jurisdiction, structure, staffing, procedures, and functions. This blueprint can serve as a basis for national and international court reform in family law.
Aims: To discuss and apply notions of preventive law and an ethic of care to court reform in family law in order to effectuate therapeutic family justice.
Method: To analyze in-depth the court reform efforts of selected states, including systemic strategic planning and extensive collaboration with community resources and organizations.
Conclusion: This interdisciplinary theory applied to the court reform process can result in court structure, practices, and outcomes that are holistic, therapeutic, and preventive and that demonstrate an ethic of care.
Tuesday, 9-11 a.m.Therapeutic Jurisprudence and Health Law, Moderator: David B. Wexler
Kathy Cerminara, Professor of Law, Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad Law Center, Fort Lauderdale, Florida- Therapeutic Effects on Physicians and Other Health Care Providers of Assisting Patients in Dying
Mental health issues often arise when a terminally ill patient seeks assistance in dying, either by refusing life-sustaining treatment or by seeking assistance in affirmatively taking steps to end his or her own life. Competence of the patient is one such issue, and American laws such as case law authorizing withdrawal or withholding of life-sustaining treatment and the state of Oregon’s statute authorizing physician assistance in the suicides of terminally ill patients take great care to seek to assure patient competence. Another issue only recently achieving prominence is the psychological effect on physicians and other medical providers as they assist in such activities. Through a literature review, this presentation will highlight some of what is known about the effects on the mental health of physicians and other medical providers of assisting patients in achieving death, and will suggest areas for further study.
Charity Scott Professor of Law, Georgia University School of Law, – Professional Education in Law and Medicine: Obstacles to Implementing a Therapeutic Approach to Professional Practice
Professional education in both law and medicine emphasizes certain kinds of knowledge, skills, and values for training future legal and medical practitioners. Such training often neglects the interpersonal skills necessary for effective problem-solving and good communication with clients and patients. Lack of such skills can diminish the quality of professional practice as well as impede resolution of conflicts that involve clients and patients. While both professions may include among their credos “above all, do no harm,” their approaches to training their future professionals often fall short of this ideal. Law students are given predominantly litigation-oriented models for solving problems; medical students are often drilled on science and diagnosis of disease at the expense of understanding their patients as human beings. With a limited toolkit of skills, it is not surprising that practice styles of legal and medical professionals often reflect the saying, “If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.” This presentation will discuss how the principles of therapeutic jurisprudence might be adapted to improve both legal and medical education.
Michal Alberstein, Professor and Visiting Scholar, Columbia University and Fordham University Law School Therapeutic Jurisprudence and Public Health: The Potential for a Dialogue
As implemented in various legal fields, such as mental health, criminal, and family law, therapeutic jurisprudence (“TJ”) is closely related to public health ideology. Like TJ, public health highly values prevention and uses multi-disciplinary understanding of the social, psychological, and cultural context to prevent illness and increase health. Although TJ and public health share many common principles, their interaction is relatively limited. Law is invoked in the public health realm mainly in the context of coercion, such as in vaccination, quarantine, disease notification, or environmental health regulations. But, the therapeutic potential of law is rarely considered. This paper will explore the philosophical, social, and cultural foundations of TJ and public health practices, in the author’s hope of starting a rich dialogue between these two fields.
Diane Kjervik,Professor and Academic Division I Chair,and Tasha Venters, Graduate Candidate, Criminal Justice Studies, University of North Carolina – Sexual Trafficking: The Nurse’s Role in Prevention, Treatment and Policy Development
Background: Sexual trafficking occurs worldwide and is often invisible to the public and health care professionals. Nurses care for women and children who have been trafficked without knowing that trafficking is involved. The focus of this presentation is on international data regarding sexual trafficking from the health, ethics, law, socio-economic and policy domains. Roles that nurses can play to intervene in health care and policy development will be posed and evaluated in terms of feasibility and effectiveness.
Aims: To examine sexual trafficking and its health consequences. To review interventions that nurses and other health professionals can use to assist trafficking victims. To build effective policy aimed at stopping sexual trafficking using a therapeutic jurisprudence framework.
Method: Literature search and legal research
Results: A summary of information will be presented using PowerPoint both in narrative and numerically to demonstrate the scope of sexual trafficking worldwide with recommendations for nursing roles to assist victims of this crime.
Conclusion: Recommendations about nursing roles to promote these interventions and policy changes will be presented from a therapeutic jurisprudence perspective.
Suzette Brann,
Reclaiming Futures: The Role and Impact of Therapeutic Jurisprudence in Empowering Women to Break the Cycle of Addiction and Crime
In 2001, 22.5% of all arrestees in the United States were female and 64% of themthese had used an illegal substance at arrest. The nexus between the addiction to drugs and alcohol and criminality and its concomitant devastation on the lives of America’s mothers, wives, sisters and daughters is undeniable. Moreover, women have historically failed miserably in court-mandated treatment because the criminal justice system did not address their particular needs with comprehensive, gender-informed services. This paper will examine the role of therapeutic jurisprudence (as exemplified in the problem-solving courts) in helping women reclaim their futures. It will also examine the role and impact of the court and the legal system as a social force that facilitates positive change in the lives of addicted women by using innovative therapeutic interventions, providing access to medical and other necessary ancillary rehabilitative social services and ensuring intensive judicial and community supervision.
Tuesday, 11-1 p.m.Therapeutic Jurisprudence and Professional Education- Moderator Susan Daicoff
Evelyn Cruz, Associate Clinical Professor of Law, Arizona State University – Therapeutic Jurisprudence in a School Clinical Setting
Background: There is a clear intersection between clinical methodology and Therapeutic Jurisprudence. Client-centered representation challenges law students to explore the client’s perceptions of the legal system. Therapeutic Jurisprudence performs a similar function through emotional and psychological explorations of litigants’ reactions to litigation. Therefore, Clinical educators would benefit greatly from incorporating Therapeutic Jurisprudence in the clinical setting.
Aims: To discuss how Therapeutic Jurisprudence can be interrelated with clinical education to improve client relationships and student learning.
Method: Visual and Written examples and group discussion
Results: Stimulate new ideas about clinical teaching and therapeutic jurisprudence crossovers.
Dr. Ian Freckelton, Barrister, Melbourne, Australia – TJ and the Tyrannies of Trendiness
There are people who feel at liberty when driving in the country to discard their refuse through the car window, legitimizing their behaviour by incanting “Biodegradable”. Therapeutic jurisprudence has become an irresistible catchcry for judges, tribunal members, law reformers, legal thinkers, and all manner of scholars seeking a rapprochement between social sciences and the law. The trendy, the woolly, the occupants of bandwagons, the paternalistic and the self-promoting have embraced “TJ”. It is timely now to draw lines in the sand and to be clear about what therapeutic jurisprudence isn’t – to delineate the boundaries and parameters of therapeutic jurisprudence, as well as how it overlaps with and intersects with other lenses through which legal processes can be viewed. There is significant potential for abuse of the concept of therapeutic jurisprudence. The paper will explore spurious and inappropriate invocations of “TJ” with a view to identifying for pedagogical, practice and scholarly purposes some of the limits within which therapeutic jurisprudence scholarship should function.
Ida Dickie Prof of Psychology, Spalding University, Louisville, Kentucky. – Therapeutic Jurisprudence: Training Effective and Competent Forensic Psychologists
A myth exists within the field of clinical psychology that traditional therapeutic goals can not be achieved within the context of the legal system. Part of this myth stems from the lack of graduate training that prepares psychologists to achieve therapeutic goals within the legal system. It is believed that the goal of promoting a healthy and positive lifestyle for an offender is not possible because offenders often do not willingly seek out assistance with this goal and furthermore, the legal environment is not conducive to building a therapeutic atmosphere. The myth also exists because of the belief that clinical and forensic psychology have very distinct and unique purposes; the former being therapeutic and the latter being adversarial or solely focused on answering a specific legal question and not assisting the offender in anyway. Psychologists have many roles within the legal system and therefore it is essential that graduate forensic psychology programs dispel this myth if effective forensic clinical practice is to be achieved. This can be accomplished by utilizing the therapeutic jurisprudence framework as a training model that not only outlines how the legal system can be used for therapeutic benefits, but also how forensic psychology can be practiced in a jurisprudent manner to assist the legal system. Such a model of training will propose how clinical forensic practice and the legal system can work in tandem towards the shared goal of reducing recidivism and protecting public safety.
Tuesday, 2-4 p.m.Therapeutic Jurisprudence and Lawyering – Moderator: David B. Wexler
Susan Daicoff Professor of Law, Florida Coastal School of Law, Florida – Implementing and Integrating TJ Approaches Across the Legal Profession
Therapeutic jurisprudence is either part of, or encompasses, a broader movement in the law towards maximizing the therapeutic potential of law and the role of lawyers. This movement, sometimes called the “comprehensive law movement,” includes related disciplines such as collaborative law, restorative justice, preventive law, and procedural justice. The profession is now experimenting with integrating these approaches into modern practice. Implementing these approaches to law and lawyering may be hampered by various obstacles within the legal profession. These include: the current emphasis of legal education, the current climate of private law firms, lawyers’ and judges’ perceptions of the mandates of legal codes of ethics, and the personality attributes of attorneys themselves. Overcoming these obstacles is explored. It is perhaps the most important challenge facing the law in the future, as it seeks to integrate therapeutic, comprehensive approaches throughout the profession.
Jessica Cousineau, Attorney, USA The Therapeutic Implications of Estate Planning
Background: The legal framework of Therapeutic Jurisprudence has been growing in the last 10 years. It is now being applied to many facets of the law, including Estate Planning.
Aims: This presentation will focus on what psychological impact planning for the future and drawing up the appropriate documents has on estate planning clients. It will show that by focusing not only on the legal implications of estate planning documents, but also on the psychological implications we can improve our clients’ emotional well-being. It will also look at how estate planning attorneys can use the principles of Therapeutic Jurisprudence to guide their practice, so as to make their clients feel more comfortable during the process.
Conclusion: By carefully listening to their clients and utilizing the Therapeutic Jurisprudence to help guide their client interactions attorneys can help ensure their clients and client’s families a less stressful time when use of the documents becomes necessary.
Christian Diesen Professor of Procedural Law, Stockholm University, Sweden
The Justice Obsession Syndrome and Other Anti-Therapeutic Effects of Procedural Law
Current procedural systems produce victims. Today’s procedural rules, which are based on the patriarchal model of a tribal duel, are destined to produce winners who take it all, and opponents who end up as total losers. Some losers never accept the verdict and use the rest of their lives seeking judicial ‘resurrection’. The hope that justice will be done one day becomes the central issue of their lives, as their arguments become more and more incomprehensible and paranoid. A comparative meta-study of procedural law shows that the traditional process, in civil as well as in criminal cases, produces many anti-therapeutic effects. This justice obsession syndrome may constitute a minor social problem, but it illustrates the defects of the current procedural process and reveals a history of repressive practice.
David B. Wexler and Bruce J. Winick: Discussants
