This book is a comprehensive reference on both the structure and content of the clinical interview and its authors present the strategies and fundamental knowledge required to conduct the clinical interview with different kinds of patients and for specific psychopathologies. It provides a thorough overview on clinical and diagnostic interviewing with state-of-the-art presentations of significant theoretical orientations (psychoanalytic, behavioral, humanistic/existential, and family systems) as well as information on frequently encountered psychopathologies.

The book stresses the idea that the clinical interview is controlled by the therapist and develops in a phase-sequenced progression along predictable lines. Clinical interviews flow from a theoretical stance on the part of the clinician, are usually semi-structured to the extent that areas are probed consistent with official diagnostic criteria and with know aspects of suspected psychopathologies, including co-morbidities, and include an understanding of the patient's personality and possible personality disorders that may complicate treatment of Axis I disorders or which may be the focus of treatment itself.

This book elucidates this process and may serves as a primary source for practitioners who want to know more about the process of clinical interviewing as well as a useful text for those students who are in the process of learning clinical interviewing.