Holistic Well Being (Counselling) Forum Events

Resource Person: Ms. Vasudha K.G.
Topic: Case history taking and Mental State Examination
Date: 13th January 2022
Time: 9:50 am to 1:00pm
Venue: Department of MSc. Counselling Psychology

The seminar was conducted by Ms. Vasudha K.G, Assistant Professor in Clinical Psychology at the Department of Psychiatry in Kasturba Medical College for I year M.Sc. Counselling students of Social of Social Work Roshni Nilaya, Mangaluru. She has completed her M.Phil. from National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANs) Bangalore. She has great interest in the areas of Child and Adolescent mental health, school mental health services, marital and family therapy.

The seminar was divided into two sessions. The first session consisted of Case history taking. The purpose for case history taking is to gather information, diagnosis and predicting future prognosis. The challenges that one may face are the need to be skillful to handle clients, finding difficulty in obtaining data due to the disturbances that the clients face and difficulty in establishing rapport. NIMHANs format is followed for the same which includes socio-demographic details, informant information, chief complaints, onset of the illness, history of the present illness, past psychiatry, medical history, family history, using basic genogram and personal history.

The next session was regarding Mental State Examination (MSE). It is the cross section of persons’ psychological life and sum total of observers’ observation and impression of the moment. MSE is done along with case history taking where one has to observe the general appearance of the client, the speech that the client is using, the mood and affect of the client, as well as their thought process. All of this gives great insight and aids in getting an accurate diagnosis.
Overall, the session was informative, a great experience and gave insight on what has to be kept in mind and observed during Case history taking and Mental State Examination of a client. The session was especially helpful for beginners and those interning in psychiatric setups.