From the Classroom: Therapist-Patient Confidentiality and Its Exceptions; Unusual DUI Defense Works

From the Classroom
By Ray Hill
Professor Emeritus, Santa Rosa Junior College

THERAPIST-PATIENT PRIVILEGE AND CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS

This is the fourth in a series of articles covering witness privileges in the California Evidence Code and criminal investigations. 

The therapist-patient privilege commonly arises in cases involving sanity, voluntary intoxication, unconscious of the act, involuntary intoxication, effects of disease, delirium, head injury, epilepsy, postpartum psychosis, somnambulism, “Confusional Arousal Syndrome,” “Battered Spouse Syndrome,” “Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome,” or other legalities and defenses relating to capacity, intent, or mental ability to commit a crime or understand a duty imposed by law.

The is a confidential-communication privilege protecting disclosure reasonably necessary for diagnosis, advice, and treatment involving a mental or emotional condition (1012 E.C.). The patient or therapist can refuse to disclose and the patient can block the disclosure of a confidential communication. The privilege can be “vicariously applied” to other persons whose presence is necessary to further the interests of the privilege. This includes group therapy sessions (Lovett v. Superior Court (People) (1988) 203 Cal. App. 3d 524).

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