Clinical reasoning in forensic psychiatry: concepts, processes, and pitfalls
Open accessAbstract
Forensic psychiatrists are often sought by the court of law to provide professional opinion on specific legal matters that have a major impact on the evaluee and possibly society at large. The quality of that opinion and recommendations rely on the quality of the analysis from the assessment results conducted by the psychiatrist. However, the definition and scope of a forensic psychiatric analysis is not clear. While existing literature on forensic psychiatric analysis generally includes organizing information, identifying relevant details, and formulating a set of forensic psychiatric opinions as components, there is no explicit and unified definition of these terms and process. This lack of clarity and guidelines may hinder forensic psychiatry from achieving its goal of providing objective information to the court or other relevant parties. Forensic psychiatric analysis exhibits numerous parallels to clinical reasoning in other fields of medicine. Therefore, this review aims to elaborate forensic psychiatric analysis through the lens of clinical reasoning, which has been developed by incorporating advances in cognitive sciences. We describe forensic psychiatric analysis through three prominent clinical reasoning theories: hypothetico-deductive model, illness script theory, and dual process theory. We expand those theories to elucidate how forensic psychiatrists use clinical reasoning not only to diagnose mental disorders, but also to determine mental capacities as requested by law. Cognitive biases are also described as potential threat to the accuracy of the assessment and analysis. Additionally, situated cognition theory helps elucidate how contextual factors influence risk of errors. Understanding the processes involved in forensic psychiatric analysis and their pitfalls can assist forensic psychiatrists to be aware of and try to mitigate their bias. Debiasing strategies that have been implemented in other fields of medicine to mitigate errors in clinical reasoning can be adapted for forensic psychiatry. This may also shape the training program of general psychiatrists and forensic psychiatrists alike.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The inclusion of the Burden_Score aligns with literature advocating for holistic, multi-dimensional indicators in forensic psychiatry.
“Importantly, the inclusion of the Burden_Score also aligns with literature advocating for holistic, multi-dimensional indicators in forensic psychiatry (Raharjanti et al., 2021).”
From A hybrid fuzzy logic–Random Forest model to predict psychiatric treatment order outcomes: an interpretable tool for legal decision support (2025) · cites this paper as Raharjanti et al., 2021
The Background describes forensic psychiatric analysis as integrating information across psychiatry, psychology, medicine, and law. Clinical Reasoning in Forensic Assessments also says an evaluee’s developmental history, social context, and chain of events must be considered. These passages support a broad, multidimensional approach to assessment, but they do not advocate multidimensional indicators or address a Burden_Score specifically (page numbers unavailable in our copy). (LLM, conf=0.83)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
Diagnostic error in internal medicine
Graber, M. L., Franklin, N., & Gordon, R. (2005) · Archives of Internal Medicine · doi:10.1001/archinte.165.13.1493 · Cited by 1,549 · see citing works
Research in clinical reasoning: past history and current trends
Norman, G. (2005) · Medical Education · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2929.2005.02127.x · Cited by 1,018 · see citing works
A Universal Model of Diagnostic Reasoning
Croskerry, P. (2009) · Academic Medicine · doi:10.1097/acm.0b013e3181ace703 · Cited by 1,016 · see citing works
Cognitive biases associated with medical decisions: a systematic review
Saposnik, G., Redelmeier, D., Ruff, C. C., & Tobler, P. N. (2016) · BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making · doi:10.1186/s12911-016-0377-1 · Cited by 1,001 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 78
- [1]Arboleda-Flórez J. Forensic psychiatry: contemporary scope, challenges and controversies. World Psychiatry. (2006) 5: 87– 91. 16946941 PMC1525122
- [2]Glancy GD Ash P Buchanan A Fedoroff P Richard L Harris VL. AAPL practice guideline for the forensic assessment. J Am Acad Psychiatry Law. (2015) 43: S1– S53. 26054704
- [4]Dunphy BC Cantwell R Bourke S Fleming M Smith B Joseph KS. Cognitive elements in clinical decision-making: toward a cognitive model for medical education and understanding clinical reasoning. Adv Heal Sci Educ. (2010) 15: 229– 50. 10.1007/s10459-009-9194-y 19763856 · DOI
- [5]Norko MA Buchanan MA. The forensic psychiatric report. J Psychiatr Pract. (2015) 21: 67– 71. 10.1097/01.pra.0000460623.40923.47 25603453 · DOI
- [6]Niveau G Welle I. Forensic psychiatry, one subspecialty with two ethics? A systematic review. BMC Med Ethics. (2018) 19: 25. 10.1186/s12910-018-0266-5 29636102 PMC5894191 · DOI
- [7]Foote WE Goodman-Delahunty J Young G. Civil forensic evaluation in psychological injury and law: legal, professional, and ethical considerations. Psychol Inj Law. (2020) 1– 27. 10.1007/s12207-020-09398-3 33250954 PMC7683260 · DOI
- [8]Adshead G Sarkar SP. Justice and welfare: two ethical paradigms in forensic psychiatry. Aust N Z J Psychiatry. (2005) 39: 1011– 7. 10.1080/j.1440-1614.2005.01719.x 16343303 · DOI
- [9]Gutheil TG Schetky DH Simon RI. Pejorative testimony about opposing experts and colleagues: “fouling one's own nest.” J Am Acad Psychiatry Law. (2006). 34: 26– 30. 16585231
- [10]Buchanan A Norko M. The forensic evaluation and report: an agenda for research. J Am Acad Psychiatry Law. (2013) 41: 359– 65. 24051588
- [11]Croskerry P. Adaptive expertise in medical decision making. Med Teach. (2018) 40: 803– 8. 10.1080/0142159X.2018.1484898 30033794 · DOI
- [12]Kiesewetter J Ebersbach R Tsalas N Holzer M Schmidmaier R Fischer MR. Knowledge is not enough to solve the problems - the role of diagnostic knowledge in clinical reasoning activities. BMC Med Educ. (2016) 16: 1– 8. 10.1186/s12909-016-0821-z 27881121 PMC5121948 · DOI
- [13]Daly P. A concise guide to clinical reasoning. J Eval Clin Pract. (2018) 24: 966– 72. 10.1111/jep.12940 29708632 · DOI
- [14]Croskerry P. The need for cognition and the curse of cognition. Diagnosis (Berl). (2018) 5: 91– 4. 10.1515/dx-2018-0072 30157031 · DOI
- [15]Yazdani S Abardeh MH. Five decades of research and theorization on clinical reasoning: a critical review. Adv Med Educ Pract. (2019) 10: 703– 16. 10.2147/AMEP.S213492 31695548 PMC6717718 · DOI
- [16]Croskerry P Abbass A Wu AW. Emotional influences in patient safety. J Patient Saf. (2010) 6: 199– 205. 10.1097/PTS.0b013e3181f6c01a 21500605 · DOI
- [17]Kozlowski D Hutchinson M Hurley J Rowley J Sutherland J. The role of emotion in clinical decision making: An integrative literature review. BMC Med Educ. (2017) 17: 255. 10.1186/s12909-017-1089-7 29246213 PMC5732402 · DOI
- [18]Schwartz A Elstein AS. Clinical problem solving and diagnostic decision making: a selective review of the cognitive research literature. BMJ. (2002) 324: 729– 32. 10.1136/bmj.324.7339.729 11909793 PMC1122649 · DOI
- [21]Hobus P Schmidt H Boshuizen H Patel V. Contextual factors in the activation of first diagnostic hypotheses: expert-novice differences. Med Educ. (1987) 21: 471– 6. 10.1111/j.1365-2923.1987.tb01405.x 3696019 · DOI
- [22]Neufeld V Norman G Feightner J Barrows H. Clinical problem-solving by medical students: a cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis. Med Educ. (1981) 15: 315– 22. 10.1111/j.1365-2923.1981.tb02495.x 6973686 · DOI
- [23]Custers EJFM. Thirty years of illness scripts: theoretical origins and practical applications. Med Teach. (2015) 37: 457– 62. 10.3109/0142159X.2014.956052 25180878 · DOI
- [24]Charlin B Boshuizen HPA Custers EJ Feltovich PJ. Scripts and clinical reasoning. Med Educ. (2007) 41: 1178– 84. 10.1111/j.1365-2923.2007.02924.x 18045370 · DOI
- [25]Daniel M Durning SJ Wilson E Abdoler E Torre D. Situated cognition: clinical reasoning and error are context dependent. Diagnosis. (2020) 7: 341– 2. 10.1515/dx-2020-0011 32562530 · DOI
- [26]Lubarsky S Dory V Audétat M-C Custers E Charlin B. Using script theory to cultivate illness script formation and clinical reasoning in health professions education. Can Med Educ J. (2015) 6: e61– 70. 10.36834/cmej.36631 27004079 PMC4795084 · DOI
- [27]Croskerry P. A model for clinical decision-making in medicine. Med Sci Educ. (2017) 27: 9– 13. 10.1007/s40670-017-0499-9 · DOI
- [28]Evans JSBT Stanovich KE. Dual-process theories of higher cognition: advancing the debate. Perspect Psychol Sci. (2013) 8: 223– 41. 10.1177/1745691612460685 26172965 · DOI · Paper page
- [29]Evans JSBT. Intuition and reasoning: a dual-process perspective. Psychol Inq. (2010) 21: 313– 26. 10.1080/1047840X.2010.521057 · DOI · Paper page
- [31]Pelaccia T Tardif J Triby E Charlin B. An analysis of clinical reasoning through a recent and comprehensive approach: the dual-process theory. Med Educ Online. (2011) 16: 5890. 10.3402/meo.v16i0.5890 21430797 PMC3060310 · DOI
- [32]Eva KW Hatala RM LeBlanc VR Brooks LR. Teaching from the clinical reasoning literature: Combined reasoning strategies help novice diagnosticians overcome misleading information. Med Educ. (2007) 41: 1152– 8. 10.1111/j.1365-2923.2007.02923.x 18045367 · DOI
- [33]Kahneman D. A perspective on judgment and choice: mapping bounded rationality. Am Psychol. (2003) 58: 697– 720. 10.1037/0003-066X.58.9.697 14584987 · DOI · Paper page
- [34]Custers EJFM. Medical education and cognitive continuum theory: an alternative perspective on medical problem solving and clinical reasoning. Acad Med. (2013) 88: 1074– 80. 10.1097/ACM.0b013e31829a3b10 23807108 · DOI
- [36]Norman GR Monteiro SD Sherbino J Ilgen JS Schmidt HG Mamede S. The causes of errors in clinical reasoning: cognitive biases, knowledge deficits, and dual process thinking. Acad Med. (2017) 92: 23– 30. 10.1097/ACM.0000000000001421 27782919 · DOI · Paper page
- [37]Royce CS Hayes MM Schwartzstein RM. Teaching critical thinking: a case for instruction in cognitive biases to reduce diagnostic errors and improve patient safety. Acad Med. (2019) 94: 187– 94. 10.1097/ACM.0000000000002518 30398993 · DOI · Paper page
- [38]Buchanan A Norko MA. The Psychiatric Report: Principles and Practice of Forensic Writing. 1st Edn. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press (2011).
- [39]Anfang SA Gold LH Meyer DJ. AAPL Practice Resource for the Forensic Evaluation of Psychiatric Disability. J Am Acad Psychiatry Law. (2018) 46: S2– 47. 29752290
- [40]Wall BW Ash P Keram E Pinals DA Thompson CR. AAPL practice resource for the forensic psychiatric evaluation of competence to stand trial. J Am Acad Psychiatry Law. (2018) 46: S4– S79. 10.29158/JAAPL.003778-18 30602602 · DOI
- [41]Janofsky JS Hanson A Candilis PJ Myers WC Zonana H. AAPL practice guideline for forensic psychiatric evaluation of defendants raising the insanity defense. J Am Acad Psychiatry Law. (2014) 42: S3– S76. 25492121
- [42]Croskerry P Nimmo GR. Better clinical decision making and reducing diagnostic error. J R Coll Physicians Edinb. (2011) 41: 155– 62. 10.4997/JRCPE.2011.208 21677922 · DOI
- [43]Rosenbloom MH Schmahmann JD Price BH. The functional neuroanatomy of decision-making. J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci. (2012) 24: 266– 77. 10.1176/appi.neuropsych.11060139 23037641 · DOI
- [44]Committee on Diagnostic Error in Health Care. Improving Diagnosis in Health Care. Balogh EP Miller BT Ball JR, editors. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press (2015). 26803862
- [45]Zapf PA Kukucka J Kassin SM Dror IE. Cognitive bias in forensic mental health assessment: Evaluator beliefs about its nature and scope. Psychol Public Policy, Law. (2018) 24: 1– 10. 10.1037/law0000153 · DOI
- [46]Zapf PA Dror IE. Understanding and mitigating bias in forensic evaluation: lessons from forensic science. Int J Forensic Ment Health [Internet]. (2017) 16: 227– 38. 10.1080/14999013.2017.1317302 · DOI
- [47]Goldyne AJ. Minimizing the influence of unconscious bias in evaluations: a practical guide. J Am Acad Psychiatry Law. (2007) 35: 60– 6. 17389346
- [48]Wills CD. The CHESS method of forensic opinion formulation: striving to checkmate bias. J Am Acad Psychiatry Law. (2008) 36: 535– 40. 19092072
- [50]Huda AS. The Medical Model in Mental Health: An Explanation and Evaluation. 1st Edn. New York, NY: Oxford University Press (2019).
- [51]Fernando I Cohen M Henskens F. A systematic approach to clinical reasoning in psychiatry. Australas Psychiatry. (2013) 21: 224– 30. 10.1177/1039856213486209 23616380 · DOI
- [52]Bhugra D Easter A Mallaris Y Gupta S. Clinical decision making in psychiatry by psychiatrists. Acta Psychiatr Scand. (2011) 124: 403– 11. 10.1111/j.1600-0447.2011.01737.x 21740401 · DOI
- [53]Hughes M Nimmo G. Models of clinical reasoning. In: Cooper N Frain J, editors. ABC of Clinical Reasoning. 1st Edn. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons (2017).
- [54]Norman GR Eva KW. Diagnostic error and clinical reasoning. Med Educ. (2010) 44: 94– 100. 10.1111/j.1365-2923.2009.03507.x 20078760 · DOI
- [55]Rylander M Guerrasio J. Heuristic errors in clinical reasoning. Clin Teach. (2016) 13: 287– 90. 10.1111/tct.12444 26395611 · DOI
- [56]Yuan T Derenge D Kalman N. Cognitive bias: its influence on clinical diagnosis. J Fam Pract. (2018) 67: 2– 7. 29879236
- [57]Vázquez-Costa M Costa-Alcaraz AM. Cierre prematuro de diagnóstico: un tipo de error evitable. Rev Clin Esp. (2013) 213: 158– 62. 10.1016/j.rce.2012.05.012 22818221 · DOI
- [59]Dror IE. Cognitive and human factors in expert decision making: six fallacies and the eight sources of bias. Anal Chem. (2020) 92: 7998– 8004. 10.1021/acs.analchem.0c00704 32508089 · DOI · Paper page
- [60]Dror IE. Human expert performance in forensic decision making: seven different sources of bias. Aust J Forensic Sci. (2017) 49: 541– 7. 10.1080/00450618.2017.1281348 · DOI
- [61]Neal TMS. Are forensic experts already biased before adversarial legal parties hire them? PLoS ONE. (2016) 11: e0154434. 10.1371/journal.pone.0154434 27124416 PMC4849669 · DOI
- [62]Vera LM Boccaccini MT Laxton K Bryson C Pennington C Ridge B. How does evaluator empathy impact a forensic interview? Law Hum Behav. (2019) 43: 56– 68. 10.1037/lhb0000310 30394765 · DOI
- [63]Shuman DW Zervopoulos JA. Empathy or objectivity: the forensic examiner's dilemma? Behav Sci Law. (2010) 28: 585– 602. 10.1002/bsl.953 20821814 · DOI
- [64]Simon D Ahn M Stenstrom DM Read SJ. The adversarial mindset. Psychol Public Policy Law. (2020) 26: 353– 77. 10.1037/law0000226 · DOI · Paper page
- [65]Jeanguenat AM Dror IE. Human factors effecting forensic decision making: workplace stress and well-being. J Forensic Sci. (2018) 63: 258– 61. 10.1111/1556-4029.13533 28464220 · DOI
- [66]Almazrouei MA Dror IE Morgan RM. Organizational and human factors affecting forensic decision-making: workplace stress and feedback. J Forensic Sci. (2020) 65: 1968– 77. 10.1111/1556-4029.14542 32841390 · DOI
- [67]Kamorowski J de Ruiter C Schreuder M Jelicic M Ask K. The effect of negative media exposure and evaluators' attitudes toward offenders on violence risk assessment with the HCR-20V3. PsyArXiv. (2020). 10.31234/osf.io/85bnc · DOI
- [68]Miller AK Rufino KA Boccaccini MT Jackson RL Murrie DC. On individual differences in person perception: raters' personality traits relate to their psychopathy checklist-revised scoring tendencies. Assessment. (2011) 18: 253– 60. 10.1177/1073191111402460 21393315 · DOI
- [69]Lerner JS Li Y Valdesolo P Kassam KS. Emotion and decision making. Annu Rev Psychol. (2015) 66: 799– 823. 10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115043 25251484 · DOI · Paper page
- [70]Marcum JA. The role of emotions in clinical reasoning and decision making. J Med Philos. (2013) 38: 501– 19. 10.1093/jmp/jht040 23975905 · DOI
- [71]Lajoie SP Zheng J Li S. Examining the role of self-regulation and emotion in clinical reasoning: Implications for developing expertise. Med Teach. (2018) 40: 842– 4. 10.1080/0142159X.2018.1484084 29947294 · DOI
- [72]McBee E Ratcliffe T Picho K Artino AR Schuwirth L Kelly W. Consequences of contextual factors on clinical reasoning in resident physicians. Adv Heal Sci Educ. (2015) 20: 1225– 36. 10.1007/s10459-015-9597-x 25753295 · DOI
- [73]McBee E Ratcliffe T Schuwirth L O'Neill D Meyer H Madden SJ. Context and clinical reasoning: Understanding the medical student perspective. Perspect Med Educ. (2018) 7: 256– 63. 10.1007/s40037-018-0417-x 29704167 PMC6086813 · DOI
- [74]Durning S Artino AR Pangaro L van der Vleuten CP Schuwirth L. Context and clinical reasoning: Understanding the perspective of the expert's voice. Med Educ. (2011) 45: 927– 38. 10.1111/j.1365-2923.2011.04053.x 21848721 · DOI
- [75]Glancy GD Chatterjee S Miller D. Ethics, empathy, and detached concern in forensic psychiatry. J Am Acad Psychiatry Law. (2021) 49(2). 10.1016/j.ijlp.2020.101650 33771910 · DOI
- [76]Sattar SP Pinals DA Gutheil TG. Countering countertransference, II: beyond evaluation to cross-examination. J Am Acad Psychiatry Law. (2004) 32: 148– 54. 15281415
- [77]Merkebu J Battistone M McMains K McOwen K Witkop C Konopasky A. Situativity: a family of social cognitive theories for understanding clinical reasoning and diagnostic error. Diagnosis. (2020) 7: 169– 76. 10.1515/dx-2019-0100 32924378 · DOI
- [78]Durning SJ Artino AR. Situativity theory: a perspective on how participants and the environment can interact: AMEE guide no. 52. Med Teach. (2011). 33: 188– 99. 10.3109/0142159X.2011.550965 21345059 · DOI
- [79]Konopasky A Artino AR Battista A Ohmer M Hemmer PA Torre D. Understanding context specificity: the effect of contextual factors on clinical reasoning. Diagnosis. (2020) 7: 257– 64. 10.1515/dx-2020-0016 32364516 · DOI
- [80]Gupta A Harrod M Quinn M Manojlovich M Fowler KE Singh H. Mind the overlap: how system problems contribute to cognitive failure and diagnostic errors. Diagnosis. (2018) 5: 151– 6. 10.1515/dx-2018-0014 30007056 PMC6743477 · DOI · Paper page
- [81]Croskerry P Singhal G Mamede S. Cognitive debiasing 2: impediments to and strategies for change. BMJ Qual Saf. (2013) 22: ii65– 72. 10.1136/bmjqs-2012-001713 23996094 PMC3786644 · DOI · Paper page
- [82]Ludolph R Schulz PJ. Debiasing health-related judgments and decision making: a systematic review. Med Decis Mak. (2018) 38: 3– 13. 10.1177/0272989X17716672 28649904 · DOI
- [83]Richards JB Hayes MM Schwartzstein RM. Teaching clinical reasoning and critical thinking: from cognitive theory to practical application. Chest. (2020) 158: 1617– 28. 10.1016/j.chest.2020.05.525 32450242 · DOI
- [84]Pinnock R Anakin M Lawrence J Chignell H Wilkinson T. Identifying developmental features in students' clinical reasoning to inform teaching. Med Teach. (2019) 41: 297– 302. 10.1080/0142159X.2018.1463433 29703101 · DOI
- [85]O'Sullivan ED Schofield SJ. A cognitive forcing tool to mitigate cognitive bias – a randomised control trial. BMC Med Educ. (2019) 19: 12. 10.1186/s12909-018-1444-3 30621679 PMC6325867 · DOI
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Hudon, A. (2025) · Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence · doi:10.3389/frai.2025.1606250 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
- Authors
- Raharjanti, N. W., Wiguna, T., Purwadianto, A., Soemantri, D., Bardosono, S., Poerwandari, E. K., Mahajudin, M. S., Ramadianto, A. S., Alfonso, C. A., Findyartini, A., Nugrahadi, N. R., Lazuardi, M. Q., Subroto, P. A. M., Saroso, O. J. D. A., & Levania, M. K.
- Affiliations
- University of Indonesia (ID)
- Universitas Airlangga (ID)
- Corresponding author
- Raharjanti, Natalia Widiasih
- ORCID
- Venue
- Frontiers in Psychiatry
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media SA
- Published
- 2021-08-05
- Volume
- 12
- Pages
- 691377-691377
- ISSN
- 1664-0640 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC8374734
- OpenAlex
- W3187815284
- Cited by
- 19
- References
- 4
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 2
- FWCI
- 0.40
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Frontiers in Psychiatry (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Universitas Indonesia (RST/HKP.05.00/2020, 00/2020)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Family Practice › Clinical Reasoning and Diagnostic Skills
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Healthcare Decision-Making and Restraints
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychopathy, Forensic Psychiatry, Sexual Offending
- Keywords
- clinical reasoning, forensic psychiatry, hypothetico-deductive method, dual-process theory, cognitive biases, situated cognition, debiasing strategies, mental capacity assessment
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review