Find a therapist to treat psychosis

The insanity defense relies on the defendant's mental state at the time of the crime, not at trial.

Psychosis is unpredictable, with biological and non-biological triggers that can strike at any stage of life.

The case illustrates the challenge of proving a defendant's prior mental state beyond a reasonable doubt.

This is Part 2 of a series about the Lindsay Clancy case. Read Part 1 here.

The so-called insanity defense, or LCR (lack of criminal responsibility) as it is called in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, differs from determining a defendant's competency to stand trial, which is about their current mental status. Instead, it hinges on the defendant's state of mind at the moment the crime was committed, which, in some cases, can be years or even decades ago. When conducting forensic evaluations for the insanity defense, determining (or trying to reconstruct) the defendant's state of mind before, during, and immediately following the criminal offense is absolutely essential. What was Ms. Clancy's condition during this time period? Perhaps most crucially, was she psychotic?

Psychosis is the most debilitating of all psychiatric disorders. If truth be told, no one really knows where psychosis comes from or what causes it. Psychosis appears to have some genetic basis and can run in families, though this is not always the case. And though the chance of identical (monozygotic) twins raised in similar or the same environments both suffering from a psychotic disorder such as schizophrenia is fairly high (up to 50 percent to 70 percent), it is still not 100 percent, indicating there are other significant factors beyond biology and genetics at play. Some of those factors are psychological stress, substance abuse, and emotional trauma. I have worked with psychotic patients for many years, and it's clear that there is a significant psychological component to this complex and devastating mental state and that it is an archetypal human........

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