Education
The Forensic Psychiatry Fellowship is the Division's flagship educational program. In addition, the Division provides education for medical students, psychiatry residents, and practicing forensic professionals. Through a generous gift from Dr. Samuel and Mrs. Kathryn Yochelson, the Division also sponsors an annual visiting scholar and distinguished lectureship.
Forensic Psychiatry Fellowship
Medical Student Clerkships
The Division offers a four-week forensic psychiatry elective rotation for medical students in their final year of study.
Psychiatry Resident Electives
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The Division offers a two-week forensic elective for Yale psychiatry residents in the PGY-2 year. There is no mechanism for residents from programs outside of Yale to participate in a formal elective rotation, but interested residents may participate in some Law & Psychiatry Division seminars in person or remotely. These seminars include the monthly Forensic Journal Club and the Child Forensics Seminar.
Interested residents should contact reena.kapoor@yale.edu for a schedule of classes.
Continuing Education
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Yale Law and Psychiatry faculty and trainees are devoted to advancing education for learners of all professional disciplines and stages of career. They routinely present workshops, lectures, and trainings throughout Connecticut, including mental health training for police officers, violence risk management training for clinicians, legislative advocacy workshops, lectures on social determinants of mental health, and firearms-related trainings.
In addition to these trainings, the Division holds special events, often in conjunction with the Department of Psychiatry, Yale Law School, and Yale Child Study Center. Recent conferences include:
- International Association for Forensic Psychotherapy
- Refugee Mental Health
- Conference on Incels
- Rebellious Psychiatry: Where Mental Health Meets Social Justice
Yochelson Lectures
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The annual Yochelson Visiting Professorship and the Dr. Samuel and Kathryn Yochelson Lecture provide a unique opportunity to celebrate the forensic psychiatry program and promote scholarship in the field. The professorship and lecture are funded through an endowment by the Yochelson family almost four decades ago. Dr. Yochelson was a Yale-educated psychologist and psychiatrist, best known as the senior author of The Criminal Personality (Yochelson and Samenow, 1976). Through the professorship, a distinguished scholar in forensic psychiatry spends a week giving lectures and seminars in the Division and throughout Connecticut.
As of 2025, the Division had hosted 28 visiting scholars including:
- Adrian Grounds MD
- Bernard Diamond MD
- Alan Stone MD
- Alan Dershowitz JD
- Paul Appelbaum MD
- Lauren Roth MD, Darrel Regier MD, MPH, Peter Reddaway MA, and Richard Bonnie JD
- John Monahan PhD
- Joseph Bloom MD
- Robert Simon MD
- Pamela Taylor MD
- Roy O’Shaughnessy MD
- Jeffrey Metzner MD
- Robert Hare PhD
- Robert Phillips MD, PhD
- Thomas Gutheil MD
- Gwynnyth Adshead MD
- Douglas Mossman MD
- Reid Meloy PhD
- Phillip Resnick MD
- Renée Binder MD
- Peter Ash MD
- John Bradford MBChB
- Raymond Patterson MD
- Debra Pinals MD
- Patricia Recupero MD, JD