CASE HISTORY TAKING IN CLINICAL SETTINGS - A Guest Lecture organized by the PG Department of Psychology - 12.07.2024 - Afifa Fathima M, II B.Sc Psychology (2024 - 2025)

 

CASE HISTORY TAKING IN CLINICAL SETTINGS - A Guest lecture organized by the PG Department of Psychology - 12.07.2024 

What is case history? Why it is important? Will that define a case ? and many other questions can be raised .

So what actually a case history is,  let's know about it.

Introduction

I'm sure that diving in and knowing more about a particular factor helps to recognize about it in a much better way . For instance, there are  people who get to know more about things which they are about to purchase like phone , car , laptop,  washing machine etc… they dive into it and knows about what are the characteristics , duration of warranty , how different it is from other , which brand does it belong , etc. Likewise a case history is the detail record of a  client,  group or an event , which includes the sufficient and basic informations about an individual. 

A Guest lecture like never before

For the betterment of students, our Department of Psychology conducted a Guest Lecture on 12.07.2024 which was orated by Ms. S. Manjula, Advisor, Knowledge Export - Import Section, All India Psychology Academy,  Sub Office - Vellore, India.

This guest lecture wasn't like a typical one ( you teach, we learn ) but it was more like a discussion . The resource person interacted with us, asked us to state what a case history is , how it can be feeded , what we should include and so on . She also encouraged us to answer for her questions by declining the fear of what if I answered wrong.  

Who doesn't like to hear out compliments from others, as I had already mentioned this wasn't a normal guest lecture , as the resource person asked the students to give any three compliments to the person sitting next to you with the condition of not to praise their physical features . 

Components of a case history 

The case history taking included the following components like,

1.Demographic details

2.Presenting chief complaints

3.History of present illness

4.Family history

5.Past psychiatric history and medical history

6.Educational history

7.Occupational history

8.Sexual history

9.Marital history

10.Premorbid personality

11.Alcohol and substance use history

12.Physical examination

13.Suicidal history

14.Mental atleast status examination

By usage of this data received from the client , a diagnosis can be done to know about the exact suffering of an individual, then proper treatment would be given to the person. The treatment will not always be a medicine but it can also be therapies , counseling sessions,  supporting services, etc.

Conclusion

These were the knowledge we had acquired by through this guest lecture. It was new to us because of the resource person's unique way of making us understand things with respect to case history taking .  A thorough case history taking and writing can be clearly learnt, while one is pursuing their Masters in Psychology, but we were very fortunate to have witnessed such useful sessions during our Bachelor's degree itself. 

- Afifa Fathima M

II B.Sc Psychology