Integrating Multiple Perspectives in Forensic Child Psychiatry Consultation

The major difficulty intrinsic to forensic child psychiatry consultation is a strain stemming from conflicts among different ways of solving problems. Three basic perspectives on problems and their solutions are (1) clinical, (2) forensic, and (3) systems. These perspectives are described in detail. Models of consultative practice that derive from these perspectives are also described, and an integrative model is proposed. This model requires understanding problems from each of these perspectives at once, and aims to discover and implement the best possible mode of resolution of whatever problems have brought the case to the legal system.