I hope you are all doing well! On of the forums ask you to watch a movie or a TV show (I know, tell everybody that I’m mean and make you do really hard things). Something I was thinking about, is if people wanted to do some sort of movie watch party (see the doing an MSE below on a character in a movie forum), I could try to plan something for (probably would be Thursday or Friday early evening) via Zoom. If there are a number of people interested let me know and I will set it up (just tell me if you are). Have a great week!
Unit Introduction and What You Will Learn
In week three, we are delving into the work of assessment. This week is asynchronous. Students will read the textbook, focusing on content related to biopsychosocial assessments, participate in forums on this topic, develop a consent form, and explore the types of content and questions used in assessments, as well as develop a diagnosis and/or mental status examination. During my lecture video, we will discuss consent and share examples of assessment forms. The agenda for the lecture video is:
- Assignments for the Week
- Consent form
- Simple Assessment Example
- MH Evaluations
The Learning Objectives for this week include:
- Identify the common categories for biopsychosocial assessments and what information clinicians generally gather in those sessions.
- Develop an initial draft of the informed consent and biopsychosocial assessment forms they will use for their case study paper.
- Students will practice assessing for a mental status examination using a fictional character
Unit Assignments
Content
- Read Cooper and Granucci Lesser (2022) Chapter 3 The Biopsychosocial Assessment
- Read Renn and John (2019) Mental Status Examination
- Explore the other resources shared
- Watch my lecture video
A-01: Asynchronous Participation and Engagement
The expectation is that each of your replies will be substantive and provide meaningful perspectives, contributing to the forum’s conversation and scholarship. They can be related to the prompts or building on conversations shared by peers. There are four forums for this week, and you are expected to make at least six replies across any of the forums. These forums include the following:
- After reading the textbook, students can engage in chapter 03 reflection questions to explore how clinicians use diagnostic reasoning and therapeutic practices.
- In starting to look more at your case study paper (and the biopsychosocial assessment you will be doing), students have a space to develop a consent form for the case study paper.
- In considering biopsychosocial assessments, reviewing what a clinician evaluates for and what questions they ask during an assessment is helpful. In the forum, questions used and content evaluated in developing a biopsychosocial assessment, students have the opportunity to share their ideas.
- Also in preparation for the biopsychosocial assessment, the forum Developing the Form for Your Biopsychosocial Assessment provides a space to share examples of assessment forms or share ideas for creating your own.
- Mental status examinations are complicated and require practice. To consider this, the forum actor representation of mental health disorder and mental status examination forum provides a space for students to practice both evaluating this based off of a movie.
Reading Quizzes
Complete W-03 Reading Quiz for Cooper and Granucci Lesser (2022) Chapter 03 due by Saturday 9/13, 8:00 AM.
Unit Resources
In the forums, I provide a number of resources that might be helpful in discussing some of the topics. PsychDB (2024a and 2024b) provide good resources for Mental Status Exam (MSE) and the Psychiatric Interview. I am uploading a chapter by Renn and John (2019) that is uploaded as a handout. It is helpful in going deeper into the understanding mental status examinations. In looking at consent, the forum includes a number of resources that could be helpful.
All of the presentations for this class can be found at https://presentations.jacobrcampbell.com. This week’s slides are Fall 2025 SOWK 581 Week 03 - Consent and Assessment Examples.
The Lecture Videos tab in the MyHeritage course is where you will be able to find class recordings. The video this week is at Fall 2025 SOWK 581 Week 03.
Reference
Cooper, M. G., & Granucci Lesser, J. (2022). Clinical social work practice: An integrated approach (6th ed.). Pearson Education, Inc.
PsychDB (2024a January 18) Mental status exam (MSE). https://www.psychdb.com/teaching/mental-status-exam-mse
PsychDB (2024b February 1) The Psychiatric Interview. https://www.psychdb.com/teaching/1-psych-interview
Renn, B. N., & John, S. E. (2019). Mental Status Examination. In D. L. Segal (Ed.), Diagnostic Interviewing (5th ed., pp. 77-102). Springer US. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-9127-3_4
To-Do List
- Read chapter three in the textbook
- Review additional resources shared
- Watch the lecture video
- Make at least six replies across the forums