THEORY AND TECHNIQUES OF CLINICAL INTERVENTION
Course objectives
General aims The main goal of this course is to teach the basic principles and the core techniques useful for conducting the first interview and the intake sessions with a patient. The lectures will be useful for teaching the theoretical principles and for describing the techniques. The loboratory hours will be devoted to illustrate and discuss these theoretical elements throught actual clin-ical material. Specific aims At the end of this course, the students will know the main kinds of dynamically oriented clinical interviews, the main concepts necessary for collecting and organizing the data during these interviews into diagnostic categories, several formats for organizing the formulation of a clinical case and the therapeutic implications of different diagnoses and plan formulations. Moreover, students will have acquired the competencies nec-essary for assessing the quality of a first interview and an intake session, and the accuracy of a case for-mulation. Applying knowledge and understanding. At the end of this course, the students will be able to conduct a first interview/intake session, to formulate a case according to the data collected during these interviews and the competencies necessary for develop-ing a therapeutic plan coherent with the diagnosis and the formulation of the clinical case. Making judgements Half of the course will be based on lectures and half will consist in group discussions of actual clinical ses-sions. At the end of the course, students will be able to develop reliable hypotheses about: what to investi-gate during a first intervie/intake session according to the different clinical features of a patient; how to make sense of the communications of a patient and of the thoughts and emotions stirred up by the patient into the therapist; how to deal with missing information or other difficultuies encountered during the inter-view; how to integrate these data in a diagnostic picure and in coherent and comprehensive case formula-tion. Communication skills At the end of the course, the students will be able to explain how they would choose the kind of first inter-view to conduct according to the different clinical situations, how they would decide if and what to inquire and how they develop their hypotheses about the patient’s funcionting and problems on the basis of the pa-tient’s communications, behaviours, emotions and problems. Learning skills During the course, the students will be given a set of references by which they will be able to deepen their understanding of how to deal with specific and complex clinical situations. Prerequisites In order to fully understand this teaching, it is important that each student have basic knowledges of general psychology (in particular about memory, language, emotions, motivations, attention), the main concepts of dynamic psychology (in particular about identity, defense mechanisms, reality testing, emotional regulation, impulsivity) and basic knowldges of psychopathology (the main criteria of the more diffuse clinical and per-sonality disorders).
Program - Frequency - Exams
Course program
Prerequisites
Books
Frequency
Exam mode
Lesson mode
- Lesson code10611901
- Academic year2025/2026
- Coursecorso|33573
- CurriculumDevelopmental psychopathology
- Year1st year
- Semester2nd semester
- SSDM-PSI/07
- CFU6
- Subject areaPsicologia dinamica e clinica