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3 J. Pub. L. 377 (1954)
Some Neglected Aspects of Injury, Mental Anguish and the Concept of Psychic Damage

handle is hein.journals/emlj3 and id is 379 raw text is: SOME NEGLECTED ASPECTS OF INJURY, MENTAL ANGUISH AND THE CONCEPT OF PSYCHIC DAMAGE FREDERIC G. WORDEN* I. INTRODUCTION IT is most desirable that when the law concerns itself with a topic which science has investigated, it should make use of the relevant scientific findings and con- clusions. Such a recourse to science should assist the law in its effort to operate with maximum realism and justice. Thus, in a trial involving a personal injury it is customary to expect that medical witnesses will give expert testimony as to the nature, extent and cause of the injury. By and large, when the physical aspect of injury to the organic body is so presented to the court, the expert testimony serves to facilitate a union of science and law. Formidable obstacles to such a happy union arise, however, when medical testimony deals with the psycho- logical aspects of injury to the person. In this area the scientific disciplines of psychiatry, psychoanalysis and psychology have achieved a considerable body of scientific knowledge, but it is based on a concept of causality which is vastly different from that underlying the courtroom problem of establishing proofs as to cause and effect. Herein lies a considerable obstacle to a happy union of any modem behavior-science with the law, for when it comes to causal relationships and processes of validation and proof, the two disciplines are talking in different frames of reference. The handicap this imposes on communication can be illus- trated by the story of two farmers. One asked, Do you believe in baptism? and the other replied, Believe in it? Ive seen it done! Actually, the direct relationship of cause to effect which figures so significantly in the law has very little relevance to the theoretical systems now employed by the behavioral sciences. It has become evident that human behavior can be comprehended only in terms of complex process theories which take account of multiple interactions between innumerable partial functions, each of which operates only in terms of the total system. In such systems the concept of causality becomes exceedingly complicated, bearing little resemblance to the proposition that A caused B. This kind of theory requires its own methods of validation and proof and these, too, are extremely complex compared to the classical and traditional experimental method of science. It is not possible to devise a crucial experiment to test these new process theories because there is no possibility of limiting variables. If each aspect of a system functions only in terms of the whole, then obviously any ex- *M. D.; Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles.

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