ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of the book. The book includes a three-axis diagnosis but did not require authors to report specific scores on the associated rating scales. It is decidedly psychoanalytic in its focus and unique in the sense that it is setting-specific. That is, our concern is with the application of a theoretical model across clinical settings and patients who are seen at that setting, rather than the way theory informs a particular test. Clinical settings that are not supportive of psychoanalytic ways of thinking and writing require the assessor’s flexibility and adaptation to whatever the work culture expects. Anthony Bram, writing from the perspective of a private practitioner, uses a psychoanalytic approach when discussing the evaluation of a young man who suffered academic and emotional difficulties, including psychotic-like symptoms, associated with separating from his family and going to college.
