Am J Psychiatry 1977; 134:508-511
Copyright © 1977 by American Psychiatric Association
Dangerousness, confidentiality, and the duty to warn
LH Roth and A Meisel
The Tarasoff decision, by imposing on psychiatrists an obligation to warn
the intended victim of threats made by a patient, but only under certain
vaguely specified circumstances, may stampede psychiatrists into issuing
such warnings to avoid possible legal liability no matter how remote the
risk of harm may actually be. The authors suggest that the ill effects of
such a reaction by psychiatrists--breach of confidentiality and the
attendant erosion of trust and harm to the therapeutic alliance--can often
be easily avoided by taking less drastic steps, some of which are
illustrated by case presentations.
