Describe the Tarasoff case.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answers may vary.Few legal decisions have had as much impact on the practice of psychotherapy as the now-famous case of Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California. The decision focuses on the duties required of psychotherapists whose clients threaten violence to identifiable others.Prosenjit Poddar was a graduate student at the University of California who became infatuated with Tatiana Tarasoff. Poddar was inexperienced in romantic relationships and was confused about Tatiana's on-again-off-again behavior; she was friendly toward him one day but avoided him completely the next night. After Poddar became a client of a psychologist at the university counseling center, he confided that he intended to kill a girl who had rebuffed him. The psychologist told his supervisor of this threat and then called the campus police, requesting that they detain Poddar. They did so but soon released him, believing his promise that he would stay away from Tatiana, who was out of the country at the time. Poddar didn't keep his promise. Two months later, he went to Tatiana's home and stabbed her to death. He was eventually convicted of murder.Tatiana Tarasoff's parents sued the university, the psychologists, and the campus police for failing to warn them or their daughter about Poddar's threats. The California Supreme Court ruled in the parents' favor by deciding that the university had been negligent. The first Tarasoff decision (1974) established a duty on psychotherapists to warn the victims of therapy patients when the therapist "knows or should have known" that the patient presented a threat to that victim. The court established a standard that therapists have a duty to use "reasonable care" to protect identifiable potential victims from clients in psychotherapy who threaten violence. A second Tarasoff decision in 1976 broadened this duty to include the protection of third parties from patient violence. Courts in several other states have extended this duty to the protection of property and the protection of all foreseeable victims, not just identifiable ones. The Tarasoff case still governs psychologists' conduct in multiple states. Many psychologists feel caught in a no-win situation: They can be held responsible for their clients' violence if they do not warn potential victims, but they can also be held responsible for breaching their clients' confidentiality if they do.