Thought Structures

[FireBurns]

Hello SDN! Here goes my first post!

I am Looking for some guidance from you on structure of thought and what you have found most useful. I am wondering specifically about how you have ordered your mind to be most effective for you for:

1. Learning Psychiatric Material
2. Application in the Clinic

For Instance when I am learning Neurology, in order to review, I may picture the brain, spinal cord and peripheral nervous system in my mind. Running my imaginary fingers over the various parts, naming diseases specific to various areas (Bells Palsy for instance in the facial nerve, then maybe I will run over the etiologies).

For Psychiatry that is more difficult, because (generally) the etiology is more abstract.I know the "Categorizing" method is always useful
ie) Psychiatric Disorder--->personality disorder--->cluster b--->antisocial

But I was hoping to hear what you have found most useful for grasping psychopathology. How is your thought structured? Mental Status Exam 1st? Axis Diagnosis? What models do you like??? Which Theories do you find useless??? Biopsychosocial, Developmental, Neuroanatomical etc etc. And how do you integrate them? I assume with more clinical experience these things become second nature but I am just starting my clinicals and would really like some guidance.

Anyways hope that was not too muddy, and you at least get the gist of what I am after.

Thanks for reading

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[firedoor]

I like to keep it simple overall and to categorize diagnostically along the following general lines:

A. MAPS: mood, anxiety, psychosis, substance
B. PECS: personality, eating, cognitive, somatoform

Of course, more complex and nuanced conceptualization is one of the hallmarks of being a psychiatrist. Nonetheless, I've personally found it helpful to always have the above schema somewhere in mind.