Workshop on ‘Case History and MSE’ was organized by the department of M.Sc. Counselling, for the I M.Sc. Counselling students on 23rd March 2021. The resource person for the workshop was Ms. Shruti Rajan. The workshop began at 9:00am with the resource person introducing herself and asking the students to introduce their background.
The session began by explaining Case History, the definition of case History, why is it needed, why is it done and how it is done.
She then explained the main Elements of Case History such as the socio demographics, presenting complaints, history of presenting illness, History of past illness, personal and family history, premorbid personality, Mental Status Exam, diagnostic Formulation.
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The Resource person then explained the 5 P’s which are problem, predisposing, protective, precipitating and perpetuating. Each P was explained well by the Resource person.
She then went on to discuss the elements of case history in detail. She also gave an insight that everything what the psychologist writes should be in exact verbatim of what the client says, especially the history of past and present illness. It helps to understand all psychological problems better.
In the second part of the session, she gave an exercise where the participants had to identify the disorder by reading the statements of the clients.
Ms. Shruti Rajan then explained about negative history and the points to be ruled out. She also explained about the genogram and how to draw it. She gave an insight into how to collect all history about each area in such a way that it made students easier to understand.
She rendered clear knowledge about the Mental Status Examination (MSE). The main elements that need to be focused were also mentioned such as general appearance and behavior, cognitive functions, thought functions, perception, mood and affect and also other psychotic and non-psychotic phenomena and insight. She also helped the participants gain insight about the MMSE (Mini Mental Status Exam), its advantages, disadvantages and also how to interpret it.
In the final part of the session, she spoke about the different assessments used such as checklists, questionnaires and different types of tests. She also explained about diagnostic formulation, which is the brief summary of positive relevant details that end in diagnosis.
Ms. Shruti Rajan ended the session by sharing her experience with a client and concluded that how tests can be appropriate or inappropriate. The session ended at 1:00PM after clarifying the doubts raised by the participants.
