Mad In America: Science, Psychiatry And Social Justice

This week on MIA Radio, we present our second chat with Doctor Lee Coleman. In the first interview in this series, we discussed Lee’s career, his views as a critical psychiatrist and his 1984 book Reign of Error. For this second interview, we focus on psychiatry in the courtroom and why the psychiatric expert witness role may be failing both the individual on trial and society at large. We also focus on Chapter 3 of Reign of Error: The Insanity Defence, Storytelling on the Witness Stand. In this episode we discuss: What led Lee to his involvement in the courtroom as a psychiatrist testifying as to the reliability of psychiatric testimony itself. How both psychiatrists and psychologists have been given a role by society to judge both the current mental state of an individual on trial and also the potential future behaviour of that individual. How important it is to address the three dimensions of past, present and future when looking at psychological testimony. The role of psychiatry in the trial of Patty He