Assessing History and Diagnosis

For exam pie, function analyses are a typical form of assessment conducted by therapists and counselors. Function analyses are used to determine the relationship of one behavior to another, and to ascertain which behavior patterns may help the client change behavior and which patterns may hinder progress. Function analyses are used to understand the patterns, goals, and outcomes of drug 

There are other diagnostic interviews available as well. For example, there is the Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS Robins, Helzer, Croughan, Ratcliff, 1981) for adults, which many professionals use and there is the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children (DISC Shaffer, Fisher, Lucas, Dulcan, Schwab-Stone, 2000) for youth and adolescents. These interview schedules are similar to the SCID and each is now in its fourth edition. Computerized versions for administration and scoring have been developed, but these, like the SCID software, can be pricey for small and solo practices. There are other diagnostic interviews not mentioned here that may work for you as well. 

Diagnostic assessment represents a very powerful tool since these interviews may pin a label on a client. How therapists use this label can have some potentially important consequences for treatment and, in some cases, for what happens after treatment. Researchers have found that diagnostic labels can be helpful if they provide clients with useful information on how to successfully treat their 

As a researcher and therapist, I also do not like the use of colloquial terms such as addict or junkie. These terms, although potentially helpful for some who find recovery in self-help programs, are not useful for everyone with a drug problem, and can be demeaning to some. In fact, some of my clients have been put off by such labels in treatment, and found them stigmatizing, and therefore potentially harmful. Besides, such terms are highly pejorative and uncomplimentary descriptions of behavior and are not diagnostically accurate terms (i.e., are not defined in the DSM-IV). I choose not to use these terms with my own clients for these reasons. 

A clean bill of health can be a relief for many clients who have not taken care of themselves physically. On the other hand, sometimes abnormal results in an examination can motivate some people to change their behavior. For some clients, however, health concerns are not as important as we would hope they 

---