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Zilboorg starts with a discussion of the position of the psychiatric witness in court. The dignity of the psychiatric profession demands that the psychiatrist should not testify for any side, but for the court. Legal practice hires the psychiatric expert to testify either for the prosecution or for the defense and
frequently limits his service to answering a questionnaire. This procedure does not allow the psychiatrist to display fully his findings and the impartial scientific judgment he has arrived at. Zilboorg blames the parties' 'narcissistic anxiety invested in winning the case' for the deplorable fact that the psychiatrist is deprived of the function of an impartial witness in court.
He presents the case of a fourteen-year-old boy, son of a West Virginia working man, who was accused of having shot and killed a neighbor woman. The defense had asked Zilboorg to testify as to the boy's insanity. He was allowed to present his investigations and testimony in his own way. The psychological picture did not allow any conclusion as to whether the boy had committed the crime or not. The defendant had signed a confession and later revoked it. In personal interviews with Zilboorg the boy faced the question of murder with placidity turning into cheerfulness. From the history we learn that the boy had been 'a good child' with an obvious tendency to identify with his mother and a one-year-younger sister. He liked to act the rôle of a woman and preferred feminine activities in the kitchen. At the age of four and one half, shortly after the birth of a brother whom he liked to feed on the bottle, he obeyed a sudden impulse to run away from home. At the time of his beginning puberty he was twice exposed to sexual seduction by older girls. He did not give in to their invitation but he became increasingly tense, frightened and withdrawn. His school work deteriorated, he slept overlong, and started to hear voices and to have visions of being persecuted, choked or ki