Psychiatric Interview Explained

This book offers an alternative to operational diagnostic manuals and manuals for structured interviewing as the only sources of theoretical and clinical knowledge. It provides an exposition of psychiatric interviewing that is theoretically and clinically well founded and supplies the reader with a coherent framework for performance of a thorough psychiatric examination. The goal is not to come up with yet another interview scheme but to facilitate an understanding of the basic (but, today, completely neglected) tenets of psychopathology and phenomenology. This exposition targets the disorders of subjectivity (consciousness), the second-person processes involved in converting subjective, first-person and observable data into a third person, diagnostically useful, format. In addition, the most pertinent clinical descriptions concerning the major diagnostic groups are presented and discussed.

Revised and updated, this practical handbook is a succinct how-to guide to the psychiatric interview. In a conversational style with many clinical vignettes, Dr. Carlat outlines effective techniques for approaching threatening topics, improving patient recall, dealing with challenging patients, obtaining the psychiatric history, and interviewing for diagnosis and treatment. This edition features updated chapters on the major psychiatric disorders, new chapters on the malingering patient and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and new clinical vignettes. Easy-to-photocopy appendices include data forms, patient education handouts, and other frequently referenced information. Pocket cards that accompany the book provide a portable quick-reference to often needed facts.

The patient interview is at the heart of psychiatric practice. Listening and interviewing skills are the primary tools the psychiatrist uses to obtain the information needed to make an accurate diagnosis and then to plan appropriate treatment. The American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and the Accrediting Council on Graduate Medical Education identify interviewing skills as a core competency for psychiatric residents. The Psychiatric Interview: Evaluation and Diagnosis is a new and modern approach to this topic that fulfils the need for training in biopsychosocial assessment and diagnosis. It makes use of both classical and new knowledge of psychiatric diagnosis, assessment, treatment planning, and doctor–patient collaboration. Written by world leaders in education, the book is based on the acclaimed Psychiatry, Third Edition, by Tasman and Kay et al., with new chapters to address assessment in special populations and formulation. The psychiatric interview is conceptualized as integrating the patient’s experience with psychological, biological, and environmental components of the illness. This is an excellent new text for psychiatry residents at all stages of their training. It is also useful for medical students interested in psychiatry and for practicing psychiatrists who may wish to refresh their interviewing skills.

Much has changed in the critical interval since the last edition of The Psychiatric Interview in Clinical Practice was published. This new, third edition provides an up-to-date examination of the psychiatric interview that reflects changes introduced in DSM-5, while continuing to recognize that describing symptoms and establishing a diagnosis should command only a portion of the clinician's attention, and that a patient's personal history must be elicited and character structure addressed in the clinical engagement. Significant advances have been made in biological psychiatry, and research in genetics, cognitive neuroscience, psychopharmacology, brain imaging, and the neurosciences in general continues apace, informing the culture of psychiatry and providing growing insight into the etiology of mental illnesses. However, the book reflects the authors' belief that virtually all major psychiatric disorders are complex amalgams of genetic disposition and environmental influences. In this context, the psychiatric interview is a vitally important dialogue, and effective strategies are modeled through the use of clinical vignettes taken from the authors' experience. Topics and features of this new edition include: * An updating of diagnostic considerations to reflect the publication of DSM-5.* A chapter on interviewing the patient with dissociative identity disorder (DID), which is now recognized as an entity distinct from other psychopathological conditions and rooted in childhood trauma. The frequency of DID in the ambulatory setting has been repeatedly demonstrated and speaks to the need to accurately diagnose and treat this often-debilitating disorder.* An entirely updated chapter on interviewing the traumatized patient.* A section on interviewing the patient of different background. The book emphasizes that the subjective experience of being "different" is universal and that psychiatry is enriched by recognizing and exploring that experience, validating its existence, and attempting to understand how it influences the patient's life.* Continued emphasis on and inclusion of relevant case vignettes drawn from the authors' clinical experiences.* Structural consistency across chapters, with sections on psychopathology and psychodynamics, differential diagnosis, management of the interview, transference and countertransference, and so forth, which reinforces skills acquisition and makes the text easy to use. By creating a text that is aligned with DSM-5 while continuing to stress the importance of eliciting the patient's subjective experience and achieving a therapeutic dialogue, the authors of The Psychiatric Interview in Clinical Practice have done a great service to the profession and provided much-needed guidance to mental health clinicians and trainees.

Focusing on the practical skills needed to establish rapport with patients and gain valuable clinical insights,The Psychiatric Interview, 5th Edition, offers a practical, concise approach to improving interviewing skills. Noted psychiatrist and award-winning mental health journalist Dr. Daniel J. Carlat uses a proven combination of mnemonics, specific techniques for approaching threatening topics, and phrasing examples to illustrate the nuances of the interviewing process, making this easy-to-digest text essential reading for trainees and practitioners in psychiatry, psychology, nursing, social work, and related fields.

Originally published in 1955, the blurb read: 'Again in this book the author expounds his main thesis – perhaps the main thesis of all modern psychiatry – namely that our conscious pre-occupations, thoughts and behaviour are merely the products or "symptoms" of a process that is going on within us (basically a physiological process) of which we are totally unconscious. Although we are at pains to conceal from ourselves and others, and even vehemently to deny, the nature and the very existence of this fundamental unconscious process, it is nevertheless the determinant of all that is us, biologically, psychologically and sociologically. In the author’s own words: "It is the force behind all activity, all life. It exists unseen in the most apparently superficial human relationship, even in the interview – as this book will show. It alone can give us the meaning of what we do and feel." The theoretical section of the book deals with the interviewer and the unconscious forces which determine the effects and the therapeutic results of the interview. The longer practical section demonstrates, by abundant examples from clinical material and by complete documentaries of actual psychiatric interviews, that it is unconscious forces which determine the patient’s symptomatic picture, his behaviour, his attitude to life, and above all his emotional relationship to the psychiatrist – and indeed to everyone he meets in every personal contact. The elucidation of this process should be of the utmost interest and of the utmost practical value to each of us in our every contact, superficial or deep, with every human being whom we meet in the course of our lives. The book will appeal to a wide public. Although it demonstrates the deepest and most worthwhile aspect of modern psychology and psychiatry, it avoids technical jargon and is written in a cheerful, lively and lucid style, easily assimilable by everybody.' Today it can be read and enjoyed in its historical context. This book is a re-issue originally published in 1955. The language used is a reflection of its era and no offence is meant by the Publishers to any reader by this re-publication.