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Clinical Assessment and Diagnosis

Clinical assessment involves systematically evaluating psychological, biological, and social factors to determine if criteria are met for a psychological disorder. Diagnosis is determining which disorder criteria are met. Assessment methods include interviews, mental status exams, behavioral observations, psychological tests like projective tests and IQ tests, and biological tests like neuroimaging. Diagnosis involves classifying individuals based on shared attributes through approaches like categorical, dimensional, or prototypical as in the current DSM-5 which identifies essential characteristics for each diagnosis.

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Charlene Juanitez Roquero
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91 views1 page

Clinical Assessment and Diagnosis

Clinical assessment involves systematically evaluating psychological, biological, and social factors to determine if criteria are met for a psychological disorder. Diagnosis is determining which disorder criteria are met. Assessment methods include interviews, mental status exams, behavioral observations, psychological tests like projective tests and IQ tests, and biological tests like neuroimaging. Diagnosis involves classifying individuals based on shared attributes through approaches like categorical, dimensional, or prototypical as in the current DSM-5 which identifies essential characteristics for each diagnosis.

Uploaded by

Charlene Juanitez Roquero
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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CLINICAL ASSESSMENT AND DIAGNOSIS

CHAPTER 3
Assessing Psychological Disorders
Diagnosing Psychological Disorders
Assessing Psychological Disorders
 Clinical assessment is the systematic evaluation and measurement of psychological,
biological, and social factors in an individual with a possible psychological disorder;
diagnosis is the process of determining that those factors meet all criteria for a specific
psychological disorder.
 Reliability, validity, and standardization are important components in determining the
value of a psychological assessment.
 To assess various aspects of psychological disorders, clinicians may first interview and
take an informal mental status exam of the patient. More systematic observations of
behavior are called behavioral assessment.
 A variety of psychological tests can be used during assessment, including projective tests,
in which the patient responds to ambiguous stimuli by projecting unconscious thoughts;
personality inventories, in which the patient takes a self-report questionnaire designed to
assess personal traits; and intelligence testing, which provides a score known as an
intelligence quotient (IQ).
 Biological aspects of psychological disorders may be assessed through
neuropsychological testing designed to identify possible areas of brain dysfunction.
Neuroimaging can be used more directly to identify brain structure and function.
 Finally, psychophysiological assessment refers to measurable changes in the nervous
system, reflecting emotional or psychological events that might be relevant to a
psychological disorder.

Diagnosing Psychological Disorders


 The term classification refers to any effort to construct groups or categories and to assign
objects or people to the categories on the basis of their shared attributes or relations.
 Methods of classification include classical categorical, dimensional, and prototypical
approaches.
 Our current system of classification, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, fifth edition
(DSM-5), is based on a prototypical approach in which certain essential characteristics
are identified but certain “nonessential” variations do not necessarily change the
classification. The DSM-5 categories are based on empirical findings to identify the
criteria for each diagnosis. Although this system is the best to date in terms of scientific
underpinnings, it is far from perfect, and research continues on the most useful way to
classify psychological disorders.

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