The impossible dialogue between psychiatry and the judicial system: a language problem.

The interface between psychiatry and law is complex and has the potential for gross misunderstanding. Each discipline has its own concerns with regard to the psychiatric patient, and there is a significant language gap between the two disciplines. The language of the medical discipline describes the patient's state on a continuum that ranges from extremely ill to completely healthy. The judicial language, on the other hand, is a binary language: the patient is either competent or incompetent, either dangerous or not dangerous. This article describes three potential areas for discourse in the Israeli context: involuntary hospitalization, criminal responsibility and legal representation of involuntarily hospitalized patients. The two systems can be complementary only if both sides make a serious effort to communicate and respect each other's principles and language.