Assemble the record
Symptoms, labs, medications, sleep, substances, supplements, and prior treatment response are put in one clinical frame.
The Method
Diagnostic Psychiatry
Psychiatric symptoms deserve medical diagnostic reasoning.
Diagnostic Psychiatry connects symptoms, labs, sleep, medications, screening scores, substances, supplements, and timeline before a case is treated as purely psychiatric or simply treatment resistant.
Definition
A medical evaluation framework for psychiatric symptoms that do not make sense, do not respond, or keep returning.
It does not replace psychiatry. It makes psychiatric evaluation more medically complete. Some symptoms are primary psychiatric illness. Some are medical illness. Some are both. The method leaves room for all three.
Method frame
The method is not more data. It is better clinical ordering.
Symptoms, labs, sleep, medications, substances, screening scores, and timeline are assembled before interpretation. The output is a differential and a responsible route, not a lab-based identity or a wellness score.
What comes into the review
The data is only useful when the pattern is interpreted.
Psychiatric symptoms and timeline
Medication trials and side effects
Labs already completed
Sleep pattern and breathing risk
Supplements, caffeine, alcohol, cannabis, stimulants
PHQ-9, GAD-7, insomnia, and function scores
A red mark changes the question. It does not answer it. Normal range does not always end clinical interpretation. The work is reading the whole pattern.
The review is structured
Four steps. No guessing dressed up as certainty.
Read the pattern
A thyroid marker is read beside panic, weight change, fatigue, sleep, and medication history. A lab is a signal, not a diagnosis.
Widen the differential
The review asks what could be psychiatric, medical, sleep-related, medication-related, substance-related, psychological, or mixed.
Route the next step
The output is a clearer pathway: psychiatric care, primary care follow-up, specialist referral, further testing, monitoring, or no medical action.
What the review can change
The output is a clinical route, not a wellness score.
The goal is not to treat a number. The goal is to understand the person, the pattern, and the next responsible step.
Psychiatry still fits
The medical review may support the original psychiatric diagnosis and strengthen the treatment plan.
Medical contributor enters
A sleep, endocrine, nutritional, medication, metabolic, neurologic, or inflammatory pattern may need attention.
Referral becomes the plan
Some findings belong with primary care or a medical specialist. The review should say that plainly.
No medical action
Not every abnormality changes care. Not every symptom needs more testing. That is still a useful result.
Clinical guardrail
Wide differential. Narrow claims.
- Not a new medical specialty
- Not a self-diagnosis checklist
- Not a lab score for mental health
- Not proof that biology explains symptoms
Evidence basis
The method builds on ordinary clinical standards, applied more completely.
The evidence basis for this framework includes psychiatric evaluation guidelines, major depression treatment guidelines, and review literature on medical and sleep contributors that can mimic or amplify psychiatric symptoms. The page should not be read as a diagnostic or treatment protocol.
- American Psychiatric Association psychiatric evaluation guideline.
- CANMAT depression guideline update.
- Primary-care and sleep-medicine review literature for B12 deficiency and sleep apnea.
Next step
Bring the labs. Bring the medication history. Look at the pattern.
For clinical care, start with the review pathway. For education, continue through the conditions library and method pages.