Aggressive and violent behaviour is a challenging psychiatric emergency to manage, especially among vulnerable categories such as patients with Intellectual Developmental Disorder. Although there is some evidence that clozapine may be useful as an anti-violence compound, its use is limited by common metabolic complications. An adult patient…

In this article we discuss the necessity of fully informing patients and their families of what constitutes physical interventions and their attendant risks under the established principles and obligations of informed consent. After a brief review of the elements of informed consent and the nature of the duty to advise patients and their families…

The neurobiology of borderline personality disorder (BPD) remains unclear. Dysfunctions of several neurobiological systems, including serotoninergic, dopaminergic, and other neurotransmitter systems, have been discussed. Here we present a theory that alterations in the sensitivity of opioid receptors or the availability of endogenous opioids…

While there are a number of instruments that assess historical factors related to sexual aggression for the purposes of risk assessment, there is a notable absence of measures that assess change in ongoing, sexually aggressive behaviours engaged in by people who reside in psychiatric hospitals. The purpose of this report is to describe the…

Inpatient assault of forensic and psychiatric staff is a complex and multifaceted issue. Hence, the consequences reported in the literature regarding prosecuting assaultive inpatients are quite variable. In this article, issues pertaining to the prosecution of violent inpatients are reviewed. Illustrative cases, challenges of prosecution,…

Experimental interest in anger arousal has typically been incidental or secondary to the study of aggresssion. Novaco developed a cognitive behavior therapy approach to chronic anger problems. Clinical techniques have followed the work of Meichenbaum (1974, 1975) in the development of an approach called "stress inoculation" that has been…