Abnormal Psychology: Clinical Assessment and Discuss the Roles of the Clinical Interview

Learning Objectives 1. Define clinical assessment and discuss the roles of the clinical interview, tests, and observations. Clinical assessment is an evaluation of a patient’s physical condition and prognosis based on information gathered from physical and laboratory examinations and the patient’s medical history. Clinical interview is a face to face encounter meeting. Tests are devices for gathering information about a few aspects of a person’s psychological functioning, from which broader information about the person can be inferred.
Observations clinicians systematically observe their clients behavior. Naturalistic observation clinicians observe their clients in their everyday client. Analog observation clinicians observe their clients in an artificial setting, such as a clinical office or laboratory. Self – monitoring clients are instructed to observe themselves. 2. Summarize the axis approach of the DSM series and describe the general features of DSM-IV-TR. The DSM-IV-TR, lists approximately 400 disorders.
It requires clinicians to evaluate a client’s condition on five separate axes. 3. List the major classification of disorders from Axis I of the DSM-IV-TR. Axis I: Major depressive disorder such as: anxiety disorders and mood disorders. 4. Discuss the dangers of diagnosing and labeling in classifying mental disorders. Clinicians will not always arrive at the correct conclusion. Another problem related to diagnosis is the prejudice that labels arouse, which may be damaging to the person who is diagnosed. . Discuss types and effectiveness of treatment s for mental disorders. Therapist treatment plans typically reflect their theoretical orientations and how they have learned to conduct therapy. Current research may play a role. Evidenced based treatment or empirically supported. Determining the effectiveness of the treatment is difficult because therapist differ in their ways of defining and measuring success.