Abstract
Most clients approach the first interview with a clinician seeking assistance to address a specific problem. The task of the interviewer is to gather information about the client, the problem, the circumstances and context, as well as the history, in order to conclude the intake with a diagnostic impression. The diagnosis sets the stage for intervention, because the first step in addressing a problem is to define it, and it must be defined carefully and accurately. The most skillfully implemented intervention will fail miserably if it seeks to address the wrong problem. Therefore, the successful diagnostic interview sets the stage for conceptualizing the case, goal setting, as well as treatment planning (Sommers-Flanagan & Sommers-Flanagan, 2017). It also relies on the clinician having the ability to draft a clear, yet comprehensive, intake evaluation report (Segal & Hutchings, 2007). In this chapter, we discuss three highly important areas of a clinical or diagnostic assessment, namely, the presenting problem, history of the presenting problem, and social history.
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Virden, T.B., Flint, M. (2019). Presenting Problem, History of Presenting Problem, and Social History. In: Segal, D.L. (eds) Diagnostic Interviewing. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-9127-3_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-9127-3_3
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