Diagnosis and Assessment

Course Description

Explores the realm of mental illness from the perspectives of etiology, diagnosis, and assessment. Covers relevant contextual issues often considered to be related to etiology and treatment. These include neurobiology, culture, family and development. Also covers post-modern considerations regarding pathology and treatment.

Learning Outcomes

• Distinguish presenting problems by assessing major issues involved to determine a client’s purpose for seeking therapy.
• Assess social adjustment by evaluating intrapersonal and interpersonal dynamics to identify patterns of behavior.
• Formulate a diagnostic impression based on assessment information to use as a basis for treatment planning.
• Conduct a mental status examination, and assess a client’s functioning level to determine the need for adjunctive evaluation
• Develop a treatment plan for a specific clinical case which is based on clinical information, case conceptualization including clientsandapos; strengths, and empirical research on therapy related to the diagnosis or presenting problems.
• Conduct a partial clinical interview or session demonstrating communication skills.
• Articulate the rationale, benefits and problems associated with DSM- IV-TR multiaxial assessment and differential diagnosis.
• Articulate the differences between pathology based assessment and strength or wellness based assessment.
• Demonstrate knowledge of DSM-IV-TR criteria for major presenting disorders of adults, including integration of DSM-IV-TR criteria with assessment interviews.
• Demonstrate knowledge of procedures to integrate assessment information with diagnostic categories
• Demonstrate knowledge of methods to formulate short and long-term treatment goals for treatment planning purposes