Customer Reviews

Interview Guide for Evaluating Dsm-IV Psychiatric Disorders and the Mental Status Examination

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought this book in the search for a small gem on interview technique. This one is perhaps semi-precious.

Whilst this tiny text has been praised in other reviews here as a tool for the beginner trying to construct something of a skeletal framework to their interview technique, to me it sports three significant drawbacks for the new player.

Firstly, it is diagnosis based, rather than presentation based. Undergraduates and clinicians alike are time and again faced with the reality that the problems of patients, particularly at first presentation, not uncommonly present with diagnostic uncertainty that is not resolved even at the end of the first interview. By analogy, I would expect significant difficulty trying to approach clinical medicine as a medical student from the end point of clasification and working backwards.

Secondly, the emphasis in this book is very much on directive interviewing, typically by closed questioning. This approach puts the emphasis on content at the risk of missing out on valuable clinical information about the form of what is being said.

Thirdly, and to me most significantly, the book misses an opportunity to have a devoted section on assessment of risk in its many forms.

Taking the approach of this book alone, the newcomer without a background in mental health might thus feel limited in scope to elicit, understand and formulate what information is presented to them, let alone engage the person(s) in front of them.

A section on high yield interviewing of carers, relatives, colleagues from other disciplines and police would have strengthened the book too, as would approaches to interviewing in different contexts, such as the hospital ward, emergency room, primary care outpatient office etc.

On a positive note, this book does canvas a large volume of concrete screening questions concerning many clinical entities as viewed through the eyes of DSM nosology, particularly given its size and low cost. It thus has value to the time conscious undergraduate on a budget wishing to read a wide ranging introduction to the subject at the beginning of their term or cramming prior to exams.

I felt that this little pocket guide was really easy to read and helpful, especially when I needed to specify questions for certain interviewing sessions with clients. I would recommend it to anyone who needs a little extra help with difficult clients. Great for Students!

This interview guide is the perfect companion to the novice practitioner. Zimmerman has condensed the interview sequence of the major disorders so that you can logically follow, and intentionally interview a client.

This book is a little pricey for its size, but the content is A-1.

This is a highly practical reminder book for conducting mental illness diagnosis interviews. It is well-written and well-organized. Probably will be most useful for medical students and psychiatry residents, but may also help young and possibly even experienced psychiatrists. Avery Z. Conner, author of "Fevers of the Mind".

If you are looking for an effective way to ask sensitive questions, this book won't help you. The book is focused on going through checklists of DSM criteria. It does not differ much from checklists of symptoms that the patients can fill out on their own.

I recommend the SCID (structured clinical interview for the DSM). The questions here are very effective for screening for symptom dimensions, and for further probing. For a more comprehensive psychiatric interview (not limited to symptom review), I found Harry Sullivan's book very helpful during and after training.

This is a must have for the beginning counselor. It offers an excellent comparison of disorders allowing for a quicker diagnosis, together with questions to pose to clients to verify/eliminate possible disorders.

I got an impression that this book was going to be difficult to follow but all the contrary. This book has helped me in my clinical assessment with clients and is very useful for quick references on specific psychiatric disorders.

and it got my 4 stars despite the downfall I find so typical in every DSM I read.
The positives first. The questions provided will definitely help beginning therapists, etc, access enough information to begin formulating a diagnostic picture. In my experience, clients range from open to guarded, chatty to quiet. The one constant is the time it takes for clients to develop trust. I never get exactly what I need to make an informed eval within the first few sessions without precise information. I ask the questions, and then ask them to give me an example. The criteria necessary to justify a label is concrete....How often..?..What are the triggers...? When....? How much......? What reduces.....?
The problem I have with this and all DSM's is the weak framework within which Axis II factors are diagnosed. No matter how many texts I read, Personality Disorder's are very difficult to diagnose, and often imitate each other on many levels. This Manual doesn't explain how many boundaries are blended, and behavioral/etc, histories are similar.
Still, if you are learning to become an effective diagnostician, I think this book provides a perfect way to access info.

I think the book is great in content, and for $11 I jumped at buying it. The only disappointment I had was how small the book was. Its literally pocket-sized, and I didnt remember seeing that in the product descriptions, so if you have reading glasses, you will need them for this small book

This is a great tool for all clinicians. It would also be helpful to those that are not in the mental health field as well. I cannot say enough great things about this book. It breaks down the DSM into questions and an interview. The questions are simple, apply to all patients, and makes diagnosing easy.