Aims

Introduction to psychopatology, to the major psychiatric syndromes, and to the various concepts of contemporary psychiatry. Identifying contributions of psychiatry to criminology and laying the groundwork for a dialogue between medical and legal discourse, while respecting the epistemological differences.

Main themes

Analysis of the interrelations and of the mutual demands between psychiatry and law (criminal and civil).
Description of psychiatric nosography (systematic description of diseses) and problems of dignosis, prognosis and treatment.
Introduction to the issue of the relation between psychopathology and criminality, and to the possibility of action by various specialists (psychiatrist, educator, probation officer).
Psychiatric testimony in the administration of justice; understanding psychiatric parlance.
Knowledge of the legal framework of psychiatric practice and non-voluntary treatment procedures (confinement of the mentally incompetent).
Learning to pose the issue of the status of the mentally ill, in the framework of the evolution of contemporary psychiatry.

Content and teaching methods

Part II (Dr. Masson)
— survey of the different epistemological methods of psychiatry (objective and subjective)
— the concept of human drives as an anthropological component of vital energy, of aggression and of violence; the concept of psychic law and of socialization of drives
— sexual psychiatric disturbances and the issue of perversions; personality disturbances and the issue of psychopathy or antisocial personality; addictions and the various strategies for treating them
— the role, function and reasoning of psychiatric expertise in judicial proceedings
— mandatory psychiatric treatment

Other credits in programs