GOOD ENOUGH RISK-TAKING

People with some psychiatric disorders, as with many other disorders o f health, are more likely to pose risks of harm to self or others than healthy people. Effective management and treatment necessarily involv es a certain amount of risk taking in this regard. Psychiatrists and t heir allied professional colleagues, trapped somewhere between medical paternalism and inquiry culture and the civil rights complaints milie u ave more inclined than not to share a conservative view of risk taki ng as the moral equivalent of gambling. The law at present compounds t his with its binary, all or nothing, approach to risk assessment, whet her in courts or review bodies. More imaginative, yet practical and te stable approaches which reflect the dynamic process of risk developmen t and reduction are considered. They are recommended for law and psych iatry, and in particular for the interface between them.