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Apr 04, 2025
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Fall 2025 Health Sciences Catalog
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HWC 519 - Clinical Assessment, Diagnosis, and Psychopharmacology
This course expands upon the knowledge base of human behavior and the social environment. It examines symptomatology and the complexity of mental health diagnostic categories. Students will examine the mental health concerns of diverse social, racial, and ethnic groups, particularly those which are historically devalued, marginalized, and oppressed. The aim is to develop diagnostic and treatment skills by increasing understanding of biological, neurological, social, and cultural contexts–and their interactions– and how these interactions produce symptoms that are characterized within a constellation of diagnostic categories. The roles and responsibilities of the social worker as a diagnostician and a valued, integral member of the interprofessional team, is emphasized. Focus is placed on the social worker¿s role in leading team members to become sensitized to all factors impacting the individual and the functioning of the client such as the social determinants of health. Additionally, factors influencing support systems will be examined. The use and misuse of the classification system of the current DSM 5 TR is examined. This examination includes the distinction between major mental disorders and other forms of behavior, recognition of symptoms, assessment of psychosocial functioning within a multi-cultural framework, and the relationship between diagnostic assessment and differential diagnosis. Students are introduced to the uses of pharmacological treatment of specific mental disorders and the side effects of these drugs. Advocacy, social justice, and fostering social change regarding mental illness in larger systems is reinforced.
3 credits
Prerequisite(s): HWC 500 , HWC 501 , HWC 504 , and HWC 513 .
Grading Letter graded (A, A-, B+, etc.)
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