Video Casebook of Psychiatry

The Video Casebook of Psychiatry grew out of our experience in teaching psychopathology and psychiatric diagnosis to psychiatrists, psychiatric residents, medical students, psychology interns and other mental health professionals. When time came to illustrate specific diagnostic categories, we found that prototypic illustrations were not readily available. All the interviews on the video are of actual patients who have given informed consent to having the tape viewed by mental health professionals, trainees and students. The names of the patients have been changed, but the content of the interview has not. These tapes have all been reedited to efficiently demonstrate the psychopathology included in several common mental disorders. Dr. Glen Gabbard, distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at The Menninger Clinic, was "very impressed" with the "superb" choices and wrote that "the vignettes have great value for teaching."

These video cases can be used for a variety of purposes. They may be used by teachers, who wish to illustrate certain forms of psychopathology and arrive at specific psychiatric diagnoses consistent with the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV). The specifically targeted audience are teachers of undergraduate and graduate students, who are studying psychiatry, psychology, psychiatric nursing, psychiatric social work, occupational therapy, and recreational therapy.

The cases may also be useful to students, who wish to have the diagnoses "come to life" on video so as to illustrate the psychopathology about which they have read in textbooks. The video will be particularly valuable to professionals studying for their specialty examinations, such as the psychiatry boards, where half of the oral examination involves material contained on a videotape of a patient. An additional suggested use of the videotape is to illustrate interviewing techniques that demonstrate how to elicit historical information important in establishing a diagnosis. These vignettes are representative of routine and standard psychiatric practice. Thus, they may be of value to students who need to learn how to conduct a patient interview.

This Video Casebook of Psychiatry contains eight video cases that illustrate a variety of common psychiatric diagnostic categories. Each case is approximately 4 to 9 minutes in length, and should contain enough information to arrive at a specific DSM-IV diagnosis. As often happens in real life, there are some diagnostic ambiguities that cannot be easily resolved in a 5 to 10 minute video interview (or even in 5 to 10 months of actual treatment). These ambiguities should be seen, not as defects in the videos, but rather as focus points of discussion concerning some of the difficulties of differential diagnosis.

Each Video Casebook includes a manual that contains a brief summary of each patient's history along with a discussion of the psychopathology and the diagnosis. The diagnoses of the video cases are:

  1. Borderline Personality Disorder
  2. Major Depressive Disorder
  3. Dementia
  4. Paranoid Schizophrenia
  5. Panic Disorder
  6. Alcohol Dependence
  7. Bipolar Disorder- Manic Type
  8. r/o Dissociative Identity Disorder
We think that teachers and students will find the tape indispensable.

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