1) For an Adult
You will be warmly welcomed and interviewed. To make you comfortable, humor may be employed. The interview will start with finding out your reason for coming in. Then your present status will be detailed, and your full history taken. The interview proceeds with a thorough mental status psycho-diagnostic interview and if you are suspected of ADHD, you will be also administered a very well standardized rating scale. The psycho-diagnostic formulation is then discussed and a treatment plan is suggested based on the interview data.
2) What to expect for a child (the intake process takes 3 sessions)
For the first session, only the parents attend. The parents are interviewed about the family, the child’s full developmental history, and the child’s social, behavioral academic and emotional functioning. A mental status exam by proxy is conducted (questions about the child’s mental status are asked). If necessary, the parents are administered a standardized rating scale about their child and given the option of having the teacher complete one as well.
At the second session, in the presence of one or both parents, rapport is developed through a personalized clinical interview followed by mental status questions. The child is then assisted to complete incomplete sentences in order to get a sense of their personality. Standardized rating scales for depression, anxiety and ADHD are then administered.
At the third session, all of the data from both interviews is reviewed along with the scores from the various rating scales. A diagnostic formulation is discussed and a treatment plan is recommended. Since children benefit most from playing, socializing and taking part in active after school activities and passions, regular counseling is rarely recommended as it is not usually as helpful as other interventions including behavioral parent training and educational supports, to improve behavior, anxiety or mood.