Psychiatric Interview Essay

Introduction
It is widely accepted that clinical interviewing is the fundamental diagnostic tool in psychiatry. Indeed, Schreiber states that “the psychiatric interview is the essential vehicle for assessment of the psychiatric patient.” Unlike other areas of medicine, psychiatry lacks external validating criteria, such as lab tests or imaging, to help confirm or exclude diagnoses. With the clinician’s diagnosis and subsequent treatment plan being determined by the clinical data obtained from the interview and physical examination, any strategy that facilitates the systematic collection of clinical information is likely to improve the diagnostic reliability of the assessment.
Inexperienced clinicians or health practitioners less familiar