How to Write the First Clinical Interview Report
PSY 531 Clinical Assessment – First Clinical Interview – Application
How to Write the First Clinical Interview Report
Begüm Zübeyde Şengül
Middle East Technical University
Department of Psychology
Clinical Psychology M.S. Program
2012-2013 Fall Semester
How to Write the First Clinical Interview Report
Communicating Your Findings to Others
Somewhere, sometime, as a mental health clinician we might conceivably do an evaluation and provide a complete course of treatment, or in our case, a complete document of first clinical interview of a patient. Regardless of where you work or who your patient may be, you will have to communicate your findings to someone. Working in hospitals, university counseling centers, community clinics, or private practices; you will commonly share your reports with psychiatrists, and any other medical personnel. And the reports that you prepared for your first clinical interviews will be one of those shared reports.
I. The Aims of Report Writing for the First Clinical Interview
According to Cansever (1982), the aim of the psychological assessment report is to present the patient’s personality and to recommend the ways that will help the patient to solve his/her problems. However, in order to draw up a psychological assessment report, a clinical psychologist gathers information from three sources: interviews, observations, and psychological test results. For this semester and for this course; however, we only have a very first part of these three sources, namely first clinical interview. Nevertheless, in my opinion, the aim of the clinical psychologist may not be so different while he/she is writing a report of first clinical interview from the one while he/she is reporting the whole psychological assessment procedure. The aim is again to present the “patient” to others, and also to declare need of further information (from tests etc.), to declare the treatment plan–if it is decided to begin the treatment,
How to Write the First Clinical Interview Report
Begüm Zübeyde Şengül
Middle East Technical University
Department of Psychology
Clinical Psychology M.S. Program
2012-2013 Fall Semester
How to Write the First Clinical Interview Report
Communicating Your Findings to Others
Somewhere, sometime, as a mental health clinician we might conceivably do an evaluation and provide a complete course of treatment, or in our case, a complete document of first clinical interview of a patient. Regardless of where you work or who your patient may be, you will have to communicate your findings to someone. Working in hospitals, university counseling centers, community clinics, or private practices; you will commonly share your reports with psychiatrists, and any other medical personnel. And the reports that you prepared for your first clinical interviews will be one of those shared reports.
I. The Aims of Report Writing for the First Clinical Interview
According to Cansever (1982), the aim of the psychological assessment report is to present the patient’s personality and to recommend the ways that will help the patient to solve his/her problems. However, in order to draw up a psychological assessment report, a clinical psychologist gathers information from three sources: interviews, observations, and psychological test results. For this semester and for this course; however, we only have a very first part of these three sources, namely first clinical interview. Nevertheless, in my opinion, the aim of the clinical psychologist may not be so different while he/she is writing a report of first clinical interview from the one while he/she is reporting the whole psychological assessment procedure. The aim is again to present the “patient” to others, and also to declare need of further information (from tests etc.), to declare the treatment plan–if it is decided to begin the treatment,
References: Cansever, G. (1982). Klinik psikolojide değerlendirme yöntemleri. İstanbul: Boğaziçi Üniversitesi. Harvey, V. S. (2006). Variables affecting the clarity of psychological reports. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 62(1), 5-18. Morrison, J. (2008). The first interview. (3rd ed.). New York: Guilford Press. Plath, F. W., & McMath, J. C. (1979). Clinical hypocompetence: The interview. Annals of Internal Medicine, 91, 898-902. Stapleford, E. (1955). Review of writing clinical reports. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 9(1), 59.