A method of diagnosing personality in the psychological clinic

Summary

Since the strictly psychological field of personality disorders usually requires rational psychotherapeutic measures diagnosis in this field assumes a unique role. The formulation of his problem which a patient is able to make at the end of his diagnostic interview is more important than a tabulation of his reactions during the course of his interview. In order to facilitate the rapid progress of the interview toward the revelation of important material and to lead more rapidly to a satisfactory formulation of the patient’s problems a diagnostic interview form is presented. Its items consist principally of points which have been the recognized turning points in the successful rational psychotherapy of actual cases. Arrangement of the items has been determined by simple experimentation. Illustrative phrasing of initial questions is suggested.