10/23/23, 10:10 PM Testimony about trauma: Problems in admissibility and credibility.

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Testimony about trauma: Problems in admissibility and credibility.

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Shapiro, David L. (/search/results?term=Shapiro,%20David%20L.&latSearchType=a)

Citation
Shapiro, D. L. (2017). Testimony about trauma: Problems in admissibility and credibility. In S. N. Gold (Ed.), APA handbook of trauma psychology: Foundations in
knowledge (pp. 485–499). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000019-024 (/doi/10.1037/0000019-024)

Abstract
Expert testimony about trauma became a frequent occurrence several years after the introduction of the diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) into the third
edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM–III; American Psychiatric Association, 1980). This testimony has had a significant impact on
both civil and criminal litigation. Initially, this testimony was seen most frequently in criminal cases involving the defense of not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI); more
recently, however, it has been found in both civil and criminal cases when the issue of syndrome evidence is raised and in criminal cases as the basis for self-defense
claims. It has been used in concepts such as rape trauma syndrome to explore the credibility of witnesses. The seemingly pristine area of causation, assumed in the law
to be an objective test (i.e., one that the reasonable person given the same or similar circumstances would believe), has come under scrutiny because the expert often
must depend on the victim’s subjective reports of symptoms. The definition of PTSD, for example, implies a causal connection between the trauma and the symptoms,
but the question of how much documentation of trauma is necessary to conclude a cause-effect relationship never has been answered. When legal proceedings
demand such precision—as, for instance, in civil cases, the test of proximate cause (the but-for test)—the concept yields different conclusions from different clinicians.
Before reviewing these cases in detail, we consider the general criteria for the admissibility of expert testimony. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights
reserved)

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