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Diagnosing Liability : The Legal History Of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Deirdre M. Smith

Faculty Publications

This Article examines the origins of the unique relationship between the psychiatric diagnosis Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and the law and considers the implications of that relationship for contemporary uses of the diagnosis in legal settings. PTSD stands apart from all other diagnoses in psychiatry 's standard classification system, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM} , and is the focus of significant controversy within psychiatry, because its diagnostic criteria require a determination of causation. By diagnosing a person with PTSD, a clinician necessarily assigns responsibility to a specific event or agent for causing the person 's symptoms, …