ABSTRACT
Diagnosis and differential diagnosis can be likened to detective work among mental health professionals: A person in distress presents for evaluation or treatment and clinicians must use all their professional skills to “solve” the diagnostic mystery and formulate some initial clinical impressions. An important part of the diagnostic process is differentiating or discriminating one disorder from other disorders and is called differential diagnosis. Structured interviews have been developed largely to assist clinicians in solving difficult differential diagnostic puzzles. In this chapter, the major issues and strategies regarding psychiatric diagnosis and differential diagnosis are analyzed. The chapter concludes with an in-depth discussion of a popular structured interview, the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID).
