The Psychiatric Interview for Differential Diagnosis

This book offers an alternative to operational diagnostic manuals and manuals for structured interviewing as the only sources of theoretical and clinical knowledge. It provides an exposition of psychiatric interviewing that is theoretically and clinically well founded and supplies the reader with a coherent framework for performance of a thorough psychiatric examination. The goal is not to come up with yet another interview scheme but to facilitate an understanding of the basic (but, today, completely neglected) tenets of psychopathology and phenomenology. This exposition targets the disorders of subjectivity (consciousness), the second-person processes involved in converting subjective, first-person and observable data into a third person, diagnostically useful, format. In addition, the most pertinent clinical descriptions concerning the major diagnostic groups are presented and discussed.

Lennart Jansson, MD, associate professor, graduated from Copenhagen University in 1977, and currently employed at Glostrup Mental Health Center (formerly Psychiatric Center Hvidovre). He completed his specialization in psychiatry at Kommunehospitalet and other Copenhagen area hospitals. Dr. Jansson participated in the US-Denmark schizophrenia adoption studies (the provincial sample). In collaboration with prof. Josef Parnas, he contributed to the development of the EASE instrument (Examination of Anomalous Self-Experience) for early detection of schizophrenia spectrum disorders. He has been involved in research especially in psychopathology and nosology. Until recently, he worked for many years as a consultant at a first-admission unit specialized in examining young adults for schizophrenia spectrum psychopathology, and is still occupied as a consultant with similar clinical work. Dr. Jansson is course leader in psychopathology under the Danish psychiatric specialist education, and teaches on expert level in many other contexts such as the psychiatric specialist education for psychologists and international EASE educational courses.

Julie Nordgaard, MD, PhD graduated from Copenhagen University in 2001. She is senior consultant at Early Psychosis Intervention Center in Region Zealand and Associate Professor at University of Copenhagen. She is chairman for Institute of Psychopathology (Denmark) and Danish director of all EASE (scale for examination of anomalous self-experiences) related activities.Dr. Nordgaard completed her specialization in psychiatry at university hospitals in Copenhagen. Clinically she has specialized in schizophrenia spectrum disorders and psychopathological assessment of first admission patients. The key point for her research has been psychopathology and the psychiatric diagnostic interview from a phenomenologically informed base, themes she continues to pursue. Her PhD from 2012 concerned empirical and theoretical aspects of the psychiatric interview. Dr. Nordgaard teaches at expert level in psychopathology and the psychiatric interview, both internationally and domestic: she is course leader of the international EASE educational courses, and teaches psychopathology at the Danish psychiatric specialist education, at the mandatory training program for Danish psychiatrists of psychiatrist, and in a range of other contexts.