The role of diagnosis in counselling and psychotherapy

---Please note: This is course is due to be archived on Wednesday 8th December. You can study the course up until this date. For learners who have completed the course, the Statement of Participation will remain in your learner records in your OpenLearn profile.---This free course, The role of diagnosis in counselling and psychotherapy, explores the role of diagnosis in the treatment of mental health problems. It considers the history of our current understandings of 'mental health' and 'illness' with a focus on the concepts of anxiety and depression, and looks at potential gains and losses in using diagnostic labels in counselling and psychotherapy.

• Learning outcomes
• Introduction
• 1 The complexities around diagnosing mental illness
• 1 The complexities around diagnosing mental illness
• 2 Current western diagnostic systems and their history
• 2 Current western diagnostic systems and their history
• 3 Problems with diagnostic classifications
• 3 Problems with diagnostic classifications
• 3.1 Validity and reliability
• 3.2 Normality and abnormality
• 4 The survival of diagnosis
• 4 The survival of diagnosis
• 5 Focus on ‘depression’ and ‘anxiety’
• 5 Focus on ‘depression’ and ‘anxiety’
• 6 Losses and gains of diagnosis
• 6 Losses and gains of diagnosis
• 7 Working without diagnosis
• 7 Working without diagnosis
• 8 The politics of diagnosis and formulation
• 8 The politics of diagnosis and formulation
• 9 Mixed messages from psychotherapies
• 9 Mixed messages from psychotherapies
• 10 Conclusions
• 10 Conclusions
• Further reading
• References
• Acknowledgements