Evaluations and Diagnosis

It can be difficult to find out which mental health problem may be causing your symptoms or how those symptoms translate into a particular diagnosis. J Geer Psychiatry exceeds at determining your accurate mental health diagnosis through a multi-modal approach.

Medical, Consultation and Testing

• Ruling out any medical problems that could cause your symptoms

• Lab Tests/Blood work to assess for any underlying biological or metabolic factors leading to your symptoms such as kidney or liver problems, diabetes, thyroid dysfunction, anemias or vitamin and nutritional deficiencies.

• Consultation with your therapist, school psychologist and/or teaching team.

Psychological Testing

These are powerful tests that help determine a diagnosis by symptoms, personality characteristics, emotional responses and behavior. The particular test or tests will vary depending on age and other factors. Testing yields high validity, sensitivity and specificity for a broad range of mental health and personality problems. The test or tests may include:

• Personality Assessment Inventory

• Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2

• Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Functioning

• Adolescent Psychopathology Scale

• Clinical Assessment of Depression

• Detailed Assessment of Posttraumatic Stress

• Pervasive Developmental Disorder Behavior Inventory

• Problem Behavior Inventory

• Clinical Assessment of Behavior

• Pandemic Anxiety Inventory

• Expressive and Receptive Vocabulary Assessment

Diagnostic Interview

James will interview and talk to you about your symptoms, thoughts, feelings and behavior patterns. He will assess family, social and medical history and help to determine how these problems funnel into diagnostic categories. He will ask particular questions to explore the nuances of your personality, problematic behavior styles, symptoms and the many facets that are part of the particular problem(s) you have. The diagnostic interview blended with the different modalities culminate in a definitive diagnosis and treatment agenda.

Genetic Testing

Genetic testing is suggested and is also offered to help tailor medication choice. DNA testing is helpful in avoiding medication that may cause an adverse instead of optimal response based on your unique genetic expression.

Treatment

Medication choices are typically selected with an emphasis on history, DNA testing and gold standard algorithms that guide medication choice based on symptom presentation.