Research drives innovation and improved practice in psychotherapy. We describe views of members of the Faculty of Medical Psychotherapy of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych) regarding their knowledge, experience and perspectives on psychotherapy research. We sent questionnaires to the Faculty membership emailing list.

In total, 172 psychiatrists from all levels of training returned fully complete responses. Respondents considered knowledge of psychotherapy research to be important to clinical work. Many have qualifications and experience in research but lack current opportunities for research involvement and would welcome the Faculty doing more to promote psychotherapy research. Perceived obstacles to research involvement included lack of competence, competing demands and wider organisational factors.

The lack of research opportunities for medical psychotherapists may lead to their underrepresentation in psychotherapy research and a less medically informed research agenda. Providing support at academic, RCPsych and National Health Service organisational levels will allow more clinically relevant research not only in psychotherapy but in other psychiatric disciplines as well.

In the past two years in France, four psychiatrists were charged or condemned for manslaughter relating to their practice with dangerous psychiatric patients escaping mental health care facilities. Facing this increasing litigation of psychiatry, the French federation of psychiatric trainees (AFFEP) set up a survey in order to assess the concern of its members of being sued, the consequences of this apprehension on their medical practice and their theoretical instruction on law and legal action risk.

An online survey was submitted by email to all the AFFEP members nationwide between the 2nd April and the 31st October 2014.

Eight hundred and thirteen responses were obtained (65% response rate). Regarding the concern of being sued for their medical practice, 85% of psychiatric trainees dread legal pursuits. This apprehension is significantly higher amongst female trainees (P = 0.004). Legal risk assessment is involved in the medical decision process of 89% of psychiatric trainees. This trend is significantly lower amongst trainees with previous legal teaching during their residency (P = 0.02). Concerning theoretical instruction, 62% of psychiatric trainees rates it insufficient and 28% non-existent during their academic training; 96% of psychiatric trainees want to make this theoretical instruction mandatory.

The fear of legal pursuit is well known in psychiatry [1,2] but this study reveals that it begins as early as residency. In France, one explanation can be that psychiatry is the second most sued medical specialty in criminal court [3]. Specific theoretical training in law seems to be a solution in order to decrease the toll taken by legal risk assessment in daily practice.

Concern about legal action is very high amongst psychiatric trainees and the consequences of this fear impact their day-to-day medical decision process.