The Mental State Examination: What’s That?
If you have ever been assessed by a psychiatrist, you would probably have undergone a Mental State Examination. You probably did not realise it at the time. There were no needles, no scans, no machines. Instead, there was a conversation, and someone watching and listening with particular care. The Mental State Examination is to psychiatry what a physical examination is to the rest of medicine. It is the way a psychiatrist gathers evidence about what is happening in a person’s mind right now and over previous days to months. And how it is done—and how it is written down—matters far
