PSY 215 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Mental Disorder, Psychosis, Comorbidity
Document Summary
There are different ways in which we begin our assessment of an individual who may have a substance use problem. The therapist sits with the client when they come in for the first time and just has a chat. It does tend to be an unstructured interview (that is, there are probably some questions that the therapist will ask specifically but can go off track if necessary). Some of the things the therapist will ask about are the following: Substance use history: the therapist will ask what type of substances are you using and have you used. What are the different substances involved in the persons history. The therapist will ask not only which substances but also how old were you when you started using. This is an important question to ask because depending on how early the individual began using the substance it may be more difficult to come up with a successful treatment outcome.
