Description
Do you feel insecure about your diagnoses? Thinking about expanding your practice to include psychological testing or forensic evaluation? Or maybe you’re just looking to sharpen your diagnostic skills? Want to arrive at an accurate diagnosis when working with clients with complicated symptoms presentations?
Clinicians are often trained in graduate school with seamless, "cookie-cutter" case examples, but in the real world, clients often don't present with "textbook" presentations of symptoms that neatly fall into a particular disorder.
Many symptoms of mental disorders are "overlapping," meaning that the same symptom may be listed under several disorders. How do clinicians differentiate one disorder from another? What sources of data might you base your conclusions on? If you wanted to venture into forensic evaluations, mandated employer evaluations, bariatric surgery evaluations, and disability-related evaluations, what standards and tools should be used?
This eight-hour workshop was designed to equip you with practical tools for differential diagnosis, providing an overview of malpractice related to improper diagnosis, root-cause analysis, the "essential features" of commonly misdiagnosed disorders, guidelines for evaluation and testing, the American Psychiatric Association’s six-step process for differential diagnosis, four categories of sources of data that can be used to arrive at conclusions, and an introduction to the APA’s cross cutting symptom measures. Participants will learn to use diagnostic decision trees to arrive at a diagnosis for real case examples and will be provided with sample formats for both clinical and forensic evaluation reports. Finally, you’ll learn how to bill insurance companies and other third-party payers for more in-depth evaluation services.
Learning Objectives
- Adhere to ethical and professional standards for assessment, evaluation, and testing.
- Write a quality clinical or forensic evaluation report.
- Implement the APA’s 6-step differential diagnosis process.
- Identify four categories of data that can be used to inform conclusions.
Presenter
Aaron Norton, PhD, LMHC, LMFT, CFMHE, CFBA
Dr. Aaron Norton is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with certifications in addictions, alcohol and drug counseling, rehabilitation counseling, clinical mental health counseling, trauma treatment, forensic mental health evaluation, forensic behavioral analysis, and forensic psychometry. He serves asExecutive Director of the NationalBoard of Forensic Evaluators,Assistant Professor of Instruction at the University of South Dept. of Mental Health Law & Policy,Southern Regional Director, Ethics Committee Liaison, andInternational Counseling Task Force Chair for the AmericanMental Health Counselors Association, and Chair of theGovernment Relations Committee for the Florida MentalHealth Counselors Association. He co-authored the ForensicEvaluation section of the “AMHCA Standards for the Practice of Clinical Mental Health Counseling,” authored the proposal for AMHCA’s Clinical Mental Health Specialist in ForensicEvaluation (CMHS-FE) credential, served on the expert panel that created the standards and written exam for the FloridaCertification Board’s Certified Telehealth Practitioner (CTP)credential, and has been published in several journals and professional magazines. He has 20 years of experience as a psychotherapist and clinical supervisor.
Cost
$150 for NBFE members (i.e., CFMHEs and CFMHE applicants/candidates) and, for members of our partnering organizations please see Professional Partners for current listing)
$180 for Non-members
Continuing Education Information
ACEP No. 6189
Florida CE Broker Tracking No. 20-1289640
CE Broker Provider No. 50-15823
The National Board of Forensic Evaluators (NBFE) has been approved by the National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC) as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 6189. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. NBFE is solely responsible for all aspects of the program. NBFE is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. NBFE maintains responsibility for this program and its content. NBFE is recognized and endorsed by the American Mental Health Counselors Association.
This workshop has been approved for 7.0 general hours, and 1.0 ethics/professional boundaries hours, with the Florida Board of Clinical Social Work, Marriage & Family Therapy, & Mental Health Counseling and the Florida Board of Psychology, CE Broker Tracking No. 20-1289640
(CE Broker Provider #50-15823).
Click here for NBFE Cancellation/Refund Policy.
