Assessment of Mental Capacity: A Practical Guide for Doctors and Lawyers (3rd ed.)

Classification of disorders of the mind can be dated back to medieval times, with basic distinctions between “Idiocy” (learning disability), “Lunacy” (mental disorder) and “Palsy” (neurological disorder). Subdivisions of these may have got more detailed but psychiatry, unlike most other medical specialties, is still really in the medieval stage of diagnosis. A doctor who argued that measles and mumps were different aspects of the same disease, or a surgeon who said that a broken leg was an aspect of the “not‐being‐able‐to‐walk syndrome” would be laughed out of court, but I can find you eminent professors of psychiatry who espouse similar...