Henry A. Nasrallah, MDEditor-in-Chief
“Connecting the dots” has emerged as a buzzword in our media and popular culture. This expression is a picturesque way to denote competence and implies an uncanny ability to recognize and integrate what appear to be multiple unrelated data points into an important, actionable pattern. An incisive decision or intervention often follows.
When I hear this expression, I contemplate the centrality of connecting the dots in psychiatric practice. In fact, it is a ubiquitous and indispensable approach to diagnosing and treating our patients. Psychiatrists are trained to be highly skilled at connecting not only one set of dots, but often a bewildering array of complex and disparate sets of dots related to each patient we evaluate and manage. It is impossible to arrive at an accurate psychiatric diagnosis and construct an appropriate and comprehensive treatment plan without connecting countless overt and covert dots related to interconnected pathologies across a patient’s brain, mind, and body. As part of the assessment, psychiatrists often presage the existence of dots that are not yet on their clinical radar and inquire about them with the patient and multiple corroborative sources. That’s what a good psychiatric interview and history taking usually entails.
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