The Psychiatric Interview in Clinical Practice

As a resident psychiatrist, I found this book extremely enlightening. In addition to providing a framework for approaching various types of patients, it elucidated many missteps from notably poor patient encounters from my training. The clinical vignettes in each chapter serve to further develop this education. They are especially helpful in transforming concepts of the psychiatric interview into tangible applications that can be more easily incorporated into clinical practice. Throughout the book, the authors address potential transference, countertransference, motivations for patients’ behavior, and nuances of the psychiatric interview. This helps stem the clinicians’ frustrations during the interview, improve empathy, and thereby achieve the authors’ goal. Overall, I would highly recommend this book to colleagues, but a more thorough discussion of the manic patient would be helpful, especially for residents learning to manage this particularly difficult interview.

Roger A. Mackinnon, M.D., is Professor Emeritus of Clinical Psychiatry in the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, and Training and Supervising Analyst at the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, in New York, New York.Robert Michels, M.D., is Walsh McDermott University Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, and Training and Supervising Analyst at the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, in New York, New York.

Peter J. Buckley, M.D., is Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University in Bronx, New York; and Training and Supervising Analyst at the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research in New York, New York.