The Clinical Process in Psychiatry

Book excerpt: Many texts review the scientific knowledge, diagnostic procedures, clinical syndromes, and therapeutic methods of importance to modern psychiatry. Barry Nurcombe and Rollin Gallagher offer something further. The Clinical Process in Psychiatry is about how to think in clinical settings. The authors take as their organizing theme the supple, efficient, systematic problem-solving of the experienced practitioner: from the eliciting of diagnostic clues and the intuition of patterns, through the generation of hypotheses and the gathering of evidence, to the formulation of comprehensive diagnoses and the design of goal-directed management plans. Throughout, they present theotetical material in a manner which is readily accessible to both students and clinicians during their daily encounters with patients.