Using information from a person’s general medical history and current interview, a psychiatrist will inquire about both family history and personal history. Patients are asked about physical and mental health symptoms and medications (if any), troubling thoughts and behaviors, situations that bring on the symptoms or make them worse, how often symptoms occur, how long they last, how they affect work or school performance, relationships with others, and involvements with others and activities.
They will be asked about their upbringing, their current life and relationships, sources of stress, and troubling experiences. They may be asked to describe the degree of pain they feel or to represent it on some visual scale. The psychiatrist is paying attention not only to the answers to questions but making observations about a patient’s level of consciousness, appearance, motor activity, emotional state, expressions, mood and affect.