Overview
Assessment (30%)
- As a major area of competency development for the semester, you are asked to deeply reflect upon the assessment process.
- Pre-visit: What did you know about the client heading into the visit and how did you learn it? What hypotheses were you generating at this early stage? What additional information did you want to obtain? What were you feeling about yourself, the client, and the situation at this time?
- During the encounter: Describe your process for the encounter. How did you establish trust and rapport? How did you share about the limits of confidentiality and other administrative issues? What was your overarching strategy for obtaining information? Describe specific examples of therapeutic and non-therapeutic techniques that occurred – what specifically was said and what was the result (both positive and negative)? What were you experiencing during the assessment? What do you think your client was experiencing during the interview? What specific helpful or unhelpful behaviors did the client demonstrate and what do you make of them?
- After the encounter: What else do you want to know about the client? How will (could) you go about getting this information? What have you learned about yourself and your competencies? What needs improvement and how will you go about that?
Differential Diagnosis (65%) NOTE the weighting to each item to ensure adequate coverage
- Provide a COMPLETE list of diagnoses considered. List ALL DSM symptoms and indicate subjective and objective data present/absent for each symptom for every disorder considered. USE a table format to display this information. Make it VERY clear what symptoms were/were not present. (25%)
- Describe the process for pursuing some diagnoses and not others. For example, consider comorbid medical conditions that may alter expression/interpretation of psychiatric symptoms. (15%)
- Describe or depict (visually) your decision tree. (15%)
- State your final diagnosis(es) and rationale. (5%)
- What additional subjective/objective data will you continue to assess for to confirm/refute your differential diagnosis? (5%)