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Unit of Study LAWS3010 - Psychiatry, Psychology and the Law (2025)

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Unit Snapshot

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Unit description

Addresses fundamental issues where the practice of the mental health professions intersect with the criminal and civil law of Australia. Students explore the mental health-law interface within the adversary system's context as it currently functions within Australian courts. The role of experts in the contemporary legal system and how the courts have grappled with the evolving contribution made by forensic psychiatrists and psychologists are evaluated. Major controversies surrounding compensability for psychiatric injuries and decisions to release mental health patients from involuntary status are also examined.

Unit content

Module 1: Historical overview of forensic psychiatry and psychology

Module 2: An introduction to DSM-5-TR and ICD-11 and therapeutic jurisprudence

Module 3: Expert witness immunity and admissibility of expert evidence

Module 4: Expert evidence; opinions, reports, assessment, and fitness to stand trial

Module 5: Psychiatric injury under civil law

Module 6: The jurisprudence of civil commitment.

Availabilities

Not currently available in 2025

Learning outcomes

Unit Learning Outcomes express learning achievement in terms of what a student should know, understand and be able to do on completion of a unit. These outcomes are aligned with the graduate attributes. The unit learning outcomes and graduate attributes are also the basis of evaluating prior learning.

On completion of this unit, students should be able to:

analyse the accountability of psychiatrists and psychologists in their forensic role

demonstrate an understanding of the role able to be played by psychiatry and psychology in the investigative phases of the criminal justice system

describe and assess the relevant rules of expert evidence and apply them to evidence given by psychiatrists and psychologists

critically analyse the extent, consistency and adequacy of the legal system's utilisation of psychiatric and psychological knowledge in the contexts of the criminal and civil law.