Psychiatric Evaluation of Traumatic Impotence

A problem facing medicolegal examiners is evaluating the uncommon case in which scientific knowledge and clinical experience are often limited and in which relevant information is derived from a number of disciplines. Many experts are confronted with situations that occur rarely in the course of one individual's practice and yet one can formulate a reasonable opinion with review and collation of applicable information and coordinated input from different professionals. Particularly in psychiatric cases, or those with psychiatric implications, evaluators may react on the basis of their own set or bias [1] as well as countertransference attitudes. When a case involves an unclear diagnosis of one of the participants, non-psychiatrists are perhaps even more likely to attribute these events to psychologic phenomena, some of which can be utilized in a disparaging or demeaning fashion.