For Today's Courts By Michael Welner, M.D. Chairman, The Forensic Panel Associate Professor of Psychiatry, NYU School of Medicine Originally published in The Forensic Echo , May 1998.
Forensic Psychiatrists hike along pitch black and winding roads of the mind as a matter of course.
Encountered, in all the darkness, are people with stories to tell of mistakes and misdeeds, of criminal acts and often, criminal minds. We share these tales of sociopaths, the ill, and those in whom we see ourselves, insulated by our defenses. Even amidst this, evil appears only occasionally, undetected and unexpected, but most unforgettable. For years, the behavioral sciences have maintained distance from explaining evil acts and evil minds. A lingering gap between criminal responsibility and morality for which no explanation is offered.