How does a psychiatrist diagnose a patient?

How does a psychiatrist diagnose a patient?

Christopher Reist (Academic Psychiatrist, Co-Author of “Psychiatry”) gives expert video advice on: How do I know if I should go to see a psychiatrist?; How does a psychiatrist diagnose a patient?; Is a psychiatrist allowed to tell others about me? and more...

Psychiatric diagnosis stands primarily from the interview with the patient. However, that's only one part of the puzzle. It's important also to gather information on family history, it's important if possible to gather information from significant others and in the case of some disorders. It's important to have a good sense of their medical condition. In medicine we have a term called “Differential Diagnosis”. So what a good psychiatrist would do after collecting the initial information is really come up with initial possibilities. You want that list to be as broad as possible. The process then is in eliminating those different possibilities one by one until you really come down to the disorder that is likely to be accurate.