The best clinicians seamlessly combine diagnostic interviewing and excellent rapport-building during the initial session, and in this series you’ll learn how to do just that.
Volume 1 begins with Jason Buckles and Victor Yalom digging deep into some of the most fundamental questions in the field of mental health: What is a mental disorder? What is a diagnosis? What are the benefits as well as the drawbacks of conceptualizing human problems as disorders? Is it appropriate to use the medical model to treat mental illness? The many valuable uses of our diagnostic system—from having a common language among professionals, to securing insurance coverage, to scientific research—are seamlessly woven into their dynamic discussion as well. In the second half of volume 1, you’ll get clear step-by-step instructions, illustrated with short clinical demonstrations, of the various components of doing a diagnostic interview.
Volume 2 provides the opportunity to watch diagnostic interviews with clients struggling with adjustment, panic, generalized anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorders—four of the more common diagnoses encountered in clinical practice. Volume 3 covers diagnoses that can sometimes overlap and be hard to distinguish from one another: Depressive and persistent depressive disorders, bipolar, and substance use disorders. In the 4th and final volume of the series, watch skilled interviewers working with a young man who has schizophrenia, an aspiring ballerina struggling with anorexia, and a woman with all the features we associate with borderline personality disorder. You’ll see the therapists struggle with these clients—as lack of insight and psychotic thinking can often be present with these disorders—and still find a way to gather information for a working diagnosis.
Insightful commentaries by Buckles and Yalom are offered before, during and after each vignette that distill the essence of each diagnosis as well as the challenges that can arise in the diagnostic process with new clients.
New and more experienced mental health professionals with a wide variety of training backgrounds, and in settings ranging from emergency rooms to independent practice, will benefit from this engaging, nuanced and instructive series.
Diagnoses covered in this series:
- PTSD
- Adjustment Disorder
- Generalized Anxiety
- Panic Disorder
- Depression
- Persistent Depressive Disorder
- Bipolar Disorder
- Alcohol Use Disorder
- Anorexia
- Schizophrenia
- Borderline Personality Disorder