Diagnosis
The diagnosis of a specific phobia can be made by a doctor in a personal consultation. During the conversation he tries to identify the exact fears of the patient. This is done with the help of a standardized questionnaire, which enables the doctor to ask the patient specific questions.
A recognized and widely used procedure is the structured clinical interview (SKID). This interview allows the diagnosis to be made on the basis of standardized criteria (criteria that can be used to make a diagnosis for a specific disease). This interview is used by mostly experienced therapists.
In the first part of the interview, general information about the person concerned is collected. Among other things, the course of symptoms is also asked in detail. This is done with the help of a given guide that leads the therapist through the interview so that he or she can ask the right questions.
This is followed by the actual “structured” part of the interview. Step by step, the person is questioned about different areas of the disorder. The presence of affective symptoms (depression) is asked.
If this is not the case, the next area (psychotic symptoms) is asked. A total of ten different disease areas can be tested through the interview. Depending on the answer given by the person with whom the interview is conducted, the therapist may or may not be able to exclude a criterion for a clinical picture.
The patient also has the opportunity to assess his or her own behavior with the help of a special questionnaire, in which he or she observes his or her symptoms closely and then writes them down in detail. The treating physician can thus obtain an even more precise picture of the patient’s symptoms. With the help of such a procedure, other diseases that need to be taken into consideration (e.g. social phobia, agoraphobia, etc.) can be excluded.
