Am J Psychiatry 1987; 144:68-74
Copyright © 1987 by American Psychiatric Association
Protecting third parties: a decade after Tarasoff
MJ Mills, G Sullivan and S Eth
The authors discuss current public policy concerning the treatment of
potentially violent psychiatric patients and outline some legal and ethical
precedents of the current policy. Therapeutic interventions before and
after the Tarasoff decision are compared. The authors make specific
recommendations for clinicians, who they believe tend to interpret laws too
restrictively. They suggest that courts need to rethink current liability
standards so that legal decisions can be more clinically informed. Finally,
they believe that legislative interventions which specify that warning the
potential victim and notifying the police absolve psychotherapists from
liability may lead to reflexive rather than reflective management of
violent patients.
