| Address | Woollahra, New South Wales, Australia, 2025 |
| lucire@ozemail.com.au |
Dr Lucire is a forensic psychiatrist. Her expertise encompasses epidemic hysteria, epidemic somatization and moral panics. She gives expert evidence in RSI and CTD cases. In the 1980s, Australia experienced an epidemic of work disability attributed to Repetitive Strain Injury, RSI or cumulative trauma disorder, CTD. This disorder is coded in both epidemic and sporadic form as writers' cramp or occupational neurosis in the International Classification of Diseases. This web page introduces the reader to a completely orthodox approach to RSI and CTDs and demonstrates how the injury theorists are operating in the wrong paradigm.
Dr Lucire has more than thirty years of experience as a clinician and consultant. Dr Lucire has lectured on several aspects of psychiatry at undergraduate, intern and post-graduate level. Dr Lucire can provide consultancy services in all areas of Forensic Psychiatry and she has worked in many jurisdictions in several countries, states and territories.
The work of a forensic psychiatrist is at the interface of law and psychiatry, and of law and medicine. Dr Lucire has provided reports and expertise in cases in all jurisdictions and in many areas which have an interface with the law. Her current interest is in mass hysteria, which has as its forensic representations RSI and other functional somatic syndromes.
Dr Lucire's field of experience includes issues in:
Her clients have included the major institutions in Australia, legal aid services, prosecutors, claimants and defendants, major Insurers of Workman's' and Workers Compensation, victims' compensation boards, superannuation boards, commercial, public and private liability insurers.
She practices in both criminal and civil litigation, the latter a vexed area which tends to be more influenced by political than theoretical considerations. Her efforts include in this area revolve around the provision of an accurate diagnosis, so that causation is correctly attributed.
Dr Lucire believes that it is only from this starting point of diagnosis of organic or functional disorder that causation can be attributed. Functional disorder can and should be differentiated from malingering. By the time a case comes up for settlement, the original symptoms of injury have often been replaced by 'functional overlay' which causes confusion for the physical specialists.
Her review of those clients who are not obviously 'psychiatric' is useful and use can be made of such evaluations by many defendant and plaintiff clients.
Her doctoral dissertation concerns the current pandemic of Repetitive Strain Injury, RSI, also known as Cumulative Trauma Disorder CTD. This is an epidemic of somatization (hysteria affecting the soma, the body). Somatization is also known as 'functional overlay' or 'functional disorder' by the legal profession.
Her book, Constructing RSI : Belief and Desire, has been published by University of New South Wales (UNSW) Press and examines the origins , the medical philosophies that allowed it to thrive and the issues surrounding those who were afflicted.
She is frequently called to consult in RSI cases both in Australia and in the United Kingdom.
Dr Lucire is interested in developing a consultancy practice to the Legal Profession in the United States and Canada as well as her Australian and British work. She would be happy to travel overseas and to review the large numbers of claimants involved in class actions, to conduct appropriate interviews and to provide litigation standard reports. While most RSI cases were litigated in the Workers Compensation Jurisdiction in Australia, the same cases are litigated in common law, in the UK. and this involves allegations of employer negligence. In the United States, RSI cases seem mostly found in the area of product liability litigation where the structure or some other aspect of keyboards or other equipment is some how viewed as noxious.
This web page has been set up as an information sheet about the disorder popularly called Repetitive Strain Injury, Cumulative Trauma Disorder and it has been set up to familiarise the reader with this standard view, the one endorsed by the International Classification of Diseases. The currently dominant paradigm, that such symptoms are caused by injuries attributed to many and varied conditions, is a new, non-medical notion. Its promulgation by well-meaning occupational health and safety activists is at the base of the pandemic. Epidemics of RSI have followed closely on campaigns to prevent it.
The defence that Dr Lucire provides in RSI cases rests on the correct diagnosis being made in each case and from this diagnosis flows an attribution of causation. Physical, organic complaints have physical causes: somatization is psychogenic and its causes are mental: beliefs, desires and psychosocial stress. Life events and predicament determine vulnerability as do attitudes which translate into personality styles and values.
The following information concerns the theory which is used in the defence of RSI and CTD cases, so that the reader, the potential client , the defence attorney, might apprise him or herself of the potential value of this work in their defence of such claims. The same theory can be applied to cases where other organs or the back are affected with symptoms which do not submit to a lesion diagnosis, and the claimant believes him or herself to be suffering a cumulative trauma or other injury.
Constructing RSI : Belief and Desire (table of contents)
Reviews for Constructing RSI : Belief and Desire
Psychiatry And Law
Australian Journal of Forensic Sciences
Professor Stephanie Short, Professor of Public Health, Griffith University
Some of her publications are available on this page. The citation classic, Neurosis in the Workplace was published in the Medical Journal of Australia in 1986, and it provided the first challenge to the Injury Paradigm. Other papers on the RSI Epidemic include RSI an Overview, The Social Iatrogenesis of RSI, and RSI: Resistance to Paradigm Shift, Life Events and Somatization in RSI Claimants.
Other more general publications include The Role of the Psychiatric Assessor in Cases where Injury has been Alleged, Differential Diagnosis of Injury, Somatization and Malingering. Dr Lucire has also written about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome which can be an issue in early retirement or permanent disability litigation. She maintains an interest in defending cases where total allergy syndrome or multiple allergies have been alleged. These are cases where evidence for toxic cause must be found in the real world, rather than in the beliefs, behaviour and experience of the afflicted.
The Bearing of Daubert on Sex Abuse Litigation
A decision in the case of Daubert v Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals has been incorporated into American legislation and has defined what kind of knowledge is to constitute expert evidence.
Judges are learning to distinguish between evidence which is the accepted view of a significant number of experts, as required by the Frye or Bolam rule and information which has been subjected to scientific scrutiny and still stands up. Daubert hearings to determine if certain evidence is reliable and can be led are now common in the USA.
The epidemic of sexual abuse claims is based on commonplace but unvalidated
beliefs regarding what is to be called 'memory,' about harm done by juvenile
sexual activities and the reliability of complainants. Dr Lucire argues that
the judiciary now has a tool to enable it to lead rather than follow politicians
in putting an end to a modern day witch hunt and on social practices based on
ignorance.
1. Factors Affecting Conception in Women Seeking Termination of Pregnancy. Medical Journal of Australia 1975 (pages 824-27).
2. Neurosis in the Workplace. 1986 Medical Journal of Australia 145: 323-7. This paper has been given many citations both in medical and in social science journals.
3. Medea: Perspectives on a Multicide. Australian Journal of Forensic Sciences. December 1993.
4. Social Iatrogenesis of Epidemic Neurosis. (RSI) Journal of Community Health Studies XX (2) 1988.
5. The Bearing of Daubert on Sexual Abuse Allegations. Journal of the Australian Academy of Forensic Sciences. vol32 no.245-59
7. The Medical Evidence in the First 50 Administrative Appeals Tribunal Decisions. Legal Service Bulletin, Dec. 1982. (Australian) Analysis of the difficulties of evaluation of Invalid Pension applicants.
8. I fear the Greeks. Legal Service Bulletin, Feb. 1981. A medico-political expose of Social Security Conspiracy (prepared originally for a conference of psychiatry and law but deemed sub-judice at the time). Submission to the Minister and Commission of Inquiry into Social Security Prosecutions.
9. The Adversary System or a Better Way? Read at the RANZCP Conference 1983. Prepared as a submission on the Invalid Pension problem for Senator Grimes in 1982.
10. When Emotions get Converted. On the genesis of RSI as Conversion Disorder Safety Australia, Feb. 1986. Read at Medical Mythology conference, Nov. 1985.
11. Institutionalised & Rewarded Neurosis: RSI, the Australian Disease. Australian Institute of Management Journal, Apr. 1986.
12. Differential Diagnosis of Conversion. Read at RANZCP Annual Conference, May 1986.
13. Resistance to paradigm shift, The Injury Theory versus the Psycho social Model of Causation in Epidemic RSI. Read at RANZCP Annual Conference, May 1986. Analysis of sources of resistance to the psycho social model.
14. The Use of Proforma for Disability Evaluation. Unpublished but widely read. Presented RANZCP conference, Hobart, May 1985.
15. The First Forensic Interview for Patients Claiming RSI - the Use of a Pre-Printed Proforma. Presented November 1985 and available in video from the Institute of Psychiatry, Rozelle Hospital. Also available in print.
16. Square Pegs in Round Holes: A Comparison of Medical & Legal Concepts of "Causation" in Epidemic Neurosis, using the epidemic of RSI Proceedings of Conference of the Medico-legal Society of Victoria. Kotakinabalu 1986.
17. Workers' Compensation: A New Approach Submission to writers of white paper on workers' compensation in NSW (1986). (Unpublished).
18. Theory and Philosophy of Assessment: An analysis of the sources of variance in expert opinion evidence. Forensic Psychiatry Bulletin 1986.
19. RSI, an Epidemic of Craft Palsy. A chapter commissioned by Dr. (now professor) Professor Ivor Jones, then Snr. lecturer in Psychiatry, Melbourne University, for text book, "Essentials of Australian Forensic Psychiatry", 1986. (This book was never published)
20. Analysis of the Function of the Expert, in "The Expert Witness Self- Examined" in book, The Expert Medical Witness, Federation Press 1989.
21. The Role of the Psychiatric Assessor in Personal Injury Claims. Presented at RANZCP Forensic Psychiatry Conference Leura, November 1990.
22. Repetitive Strain Injury - An Epidemic of Craft Palsy. Proceedings of the Medico-Legal Society of NSW. Vol. 8, pages 134-146.
23. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: What is a disease? Debate with the Prince of Wales Hospital, Presented in November 1990 at the Institute of Psychiatry in NSW for Continuing Medical Education.
24. The NSW Mental Health Review Tribunal , First Seven Years of Operations. Presented RANZCP Forensic Section Conference Nov 15-20, 1991.
25. The Social Consequences of an Insanity Plea in NSW in 1991 - 2004.
26. Life events and getting sick with "RSI". Presented RANZCP Forensic Section Conference Nov 15-20, 1991.
27. The Five Colour Theorem: A model to elucidate the components of illness, disease and morbidity.
29. How to do a Sex Abuse Evaluation. and handout RANZCP Conference Forensic Section, June 2000, Port Douglas (available on request)
30. The Politicization of Medicine and the Medicalization of Industrial Relations. presented at Garran and Baxter conference on Psychological Injury, To be published In Journal of the Australian Academy of Forensic Sciences.
31. The Social Construction of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Read at Military Medical Corps Conference, Townsville Queensland July 15 2001.
32. The Ethics of Empiricism. Philosophy and Psychiatry conference 1997.
33. Health Status and Predicament in Compensation Seekers for RSI.
34. Sex and the Professional : Predator or Victim? Published Australian Journal of Forensic Sciences
35. Comparison of Codes in the NSW Medical Practice Act 1992 and Criminal Law. Whither 200 years of due process?
36. Comparative Analysis of Paradigmatic Assumptions of the True Believers and The Sceptics Contributing to Moral Panic about Child Sexual Abuse.
37. Health Status and Predicament in Claimants for RSI 1986-1992. RANZCP Forensic Section Conference, 2001
38. The Social Construction of the War Neuroses: Are We Being Served? Commissioned for 11th Brigade SeniorMedical Officers Conference, 14 July, 2001 Townsville Presented again RANZCP Forensic Section Conference, 2001
39.Politicising Medicine and Medicalizing Industrial Relations (repeated) RANZCP Forensic Section Conference, 2001
41. False Belief States in Psychaitry.
42. Spectral Evidence.
43. Analysis of Beliefs True Believers' and Sceptics' Paradigms.
44. Differentiating True from Fabricated Sex Abuse Allegations.
45. Towards a Taxonomy of Confabulation presented at RANZCP conference Brisbane June also ANZAPPL Conference July 2002. Darwin
46. The use of textual analysis in differentiating true from fabricated sex abuse allegations. Presented at RANZCP Forensic Section Conference October 2003 Geelong
47. Four seminal papers on SSRIs and their complications.
48. The Work of David Healy has informed all these papers.
49. Do
SSRIs cause Suicide (2004) (Powerpoint).
The fees charged depend on where the consultation is carried out and on the detail required. If the case is earmarked to be settled, less detail can be provided. If the case is one marked for litigation, then more detail and explanation are demanded. Fees for examinations and reports for simple cases start at $500 in her Sydney office, and for RSI cases they range from $600 upwards depending on the detail requested. Reports done overseas are naturally more costly, and the fee are dependent on economies of scale, as costs of travel need to be covered. More details can be provided by e-mail to lucire@ozemail.com.au