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[¶34] This court’s compelling or essential need rule has its origin in State v. Farrow, 116 N.H. 731 (1976).

[¶13] Regarding the second issue, the standard a defendant must meet to use privileged information at trial, Gagne reaffirmed our holding in State v. Farrow, 116 N.H. 731, 733 (1976).

7 116 N.H. 731, 732-33 (1976), but we have more recently employed the same language when reviewing the nondisclosure of confidential records and the attendant standards in the context of due process requirements, see Gagne 136 N.H. at 105.

He further maintains that support for a three- phase process “appears as early as this Court’s opinion in” State v. Farrow, 116 N.H. 731 (1976).

information is essential,” where other sources of information are available, the effective enforcement of drunk driving laws, though compelling, is not grounds for piercing the privilege); McGranahan v. Dahar, 119 N.H. 758, 764 (1979) (“The attorney-client privilege may not be absolute when there is a compelling need for the information and no alternative source is available.”); State v. Farrow, 116 N.H. 731, 733 (1976) (criminal defendant may pierce therapist-patient privilege only as to materi

The trial court denied the defendant access to any materials contained in the DCYS file except for “statements [made] by the minor victims.” The court also refused to review the file in camera in the following order: “Defendant must make a showing that the confidential files and information regarding the victims are essential and *104 reasonably necessary to his defense in this case.

We held in State v. Farrow, 116 N.H. 731, 366 A.2d 1177 (1976), that a patient’s privilege is not absolute.

nship in deciding whether to admit privileged matters in child-abuse and neglect cases, In re Brenda H., 119 N.H. 382, 386-87, 402 A.2d 169, 172-73 (1979); and that, in examining a witness, a criminal defendant may use only those privileged matters “essential and reasonably necessary to permit counsel adequately to cross-examine for the purpose of showing unreliability or bias,” State v. Farrow, 116 N.H. 731, 733, 366 A.2d 1177, 1179 (1976).

We can infer no abuse of discretion in refusing to order discovery of psychiatric files when, as here, there is no basis to infer that the records were “essential and reasonably necessary” to corroborate testimony on an issue in dispute.

State v. Kupchun, 117 N.H. 412, 415, 373 A.2d 1325, 1327 (1977); State v. Farrow, 116 N.H. 731, 733, 366 A.2d 1177, 1179 (1976).

Additionally, the trial court can allow the admission of privileged information if the admission is “essential and reasonably necessary to permit counsel adequately to cross-examine for the purpose of showing unreliability or bias.” State v. Farrow, 116 N.H. 731, 733, 366 A.2d 1177, 1179 (1976); see State v. Kupchun, 117 N.H. 412, 415, 373 A.2d 1325, 1327 (1977); cf. State v. LaClair, 121 N.H. 743, 745-46, 433 A.2d 1326, 1329 (1981).

However, the privileges in question are not absolute and must yield when disclosure of the information concerned is considered essential.

Even a statutory privilege is not fixed and unbending and must yield to countervailing considerations such as the rights to counsel and confrontation in a criminal case.