Paul S. Appelbaum

Paul Stuart Appelbaum (born 1951) is an American psychiatrist, and an expert on legal and ethical issues in medicine and psychiatry.

Biography
Appelbaum, a graduate of Stuyvesant High School, Columbia College and Harvard Medical School, completed his residency at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center in Boston. He is Professor of Psychiatry and Director, Division of Psychiatry, Law, and Ethics, in the Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons .

Appelbaum is credited with conceptualizing the idea of the therapeutic misconception in which subjects in medical research studies misunderstand the primary purpose of their contact with the research team as treatment.

Appelbaum has been President of the American Psychiatric Association and of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law. He developed a theory of ethics for forensic psychiatry.

His areas of particular expertise include the logic and practice of informed consent, the understanding of the influence of law on psychiatry, and the prediction of dangerousness so as to better guide psychiatric practice. His original work with Tom Grisso in the assessment of patient competency has had broad influence for research and better treatment of both civil and criminal patients.

Appelbaum is a frequent media commentator on medical issues. The New York times describes him as "a professor of psychiatry at Columbia who has published widely on medical ethics and the law."

Appelbaum is married to historian Diana Muir with whom he has co-authored articles. They have three adult children.

Books

 * The Clinical Handbook of Psychiatry and the Law (3rd ed., 2000) with Thomas G. Gutheil.
 * Almost a Revolution: Mental Health Law and the Limits of Change (1994).
 * Assessing Competence to Consent to Treatment: A Guide for Physicians and Other Healthcare Professionals (1998) with Thomas Grisso.
 * Divided Staffs, Divided Selves: A Case Approach to Mental Health Ethics (1987) with Stanley Joel Reiser, Harold J. Bursztajn, and Thomas G. Gutheil.
 * Rethinking Risk Assessment (2001) with John Monahan, Henry J. Steadman, Eric Silver, Pamela Clark Robbins, Edward P. Mulvey, Loren H. Roth, Thomas Grisso, and Steven Banks.