[The psychic cross-sectional finding, cardinal point of psychiatric-psychotherapeutic expertise]

Expertise is based on history and clinical findings. Anamnestic data and clinical results have to be differentiated carefully. Clinical findings are of special importance because they are helpful in verifying anamnestic information with regard to extent and impairment quality of complaints, plausibility and thereby their significance for the expertise. The author is of the opinion that the clinical-psychic finding is in danger of being put in the background. With the victory of the descriptive diagnosis and the international diagnostic systems ICD-10 and DSM-IV, some examiners are tempted to rely on the apparent objectivity of symptom constellations which they ask for but do not verify with their findings, be it in standardised interviews, self-assesment scales or simply in no standardised clinical history. In the following publication the author endeavours to substantiate the importance and fundamental irreplaceability of the clinical psychiatric finding in psychiatric-psychotherapeutic expertise. In addition, the author presents his own proposal for a specific expertise finding.