Differential Diagnosis — WJCS Center Lane

Dates: 10/13/26 & 10/20/26
Time: 9:00 – 10:30AM
No Enrollment Limit
Contact Hrs: 3
CEU’s: 3
Differential diagnosis is at the heart of every initial clinical encounter and is the beginning of every treatment plan. In community mental health centers, diagnostic clarity is often impacted by chronic psychosocial stressors and complex clinical presentations, and clinicians are tasked with bridging the gap between accurate diagnostic assessment and practical community care. This course aims to help bridge this gap by providing a streamlined, six step blueprint for diagnostic assessment from the DSM-5-TR Handbook of Differential Diagnosis and introducing clinicians to additional available diagnostic tools, such as the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-5 (SCID-5). Through lecture and interactive case vignettes, participants will learn how to systematically rule out competing diagnoses and navigate overlapping symptom presentations most commonly seen in community mental health care settings.
Method: Lecture, discussion
Learning Objectives:

Apply a systematic differential diagnosis framework to distinguish between overlapping symptom clusters and presentations (e.g., trauma vs. mood vs. neurodevelopmental)
Navigate DSM-5-TR Diagnostic Decision Trees and integrate structured assessment logic (such as the SCID-5) to efficiently assess presentations most commonly seen in community mental health settings.
Practice formulating a differential diagnostic case conceptualization using clinical vignettes that balance accurate diagnostic assessment and weigh the impact of psychosocial stressors

Instructor: Maya Cook, Ph.D.
Location: Zoom
Cost for non-WJCS staff: $150
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER
Westchester Jewish Community Services is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychologists #PSY-0101, and by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #SW0067.
Please note: To receive CE credits, one must attend the entirety of the class. Partial credit will not be awarded to those who attend only a portion of the class. Therefore, late arrival or an early departure of greater than 10 minutes constitutes not attending a class in its entirety. To document attendance, participants must sign in and out of the class and complete an evaluation at the end of each class
Refund Policy: Refundable up to 2 weeks prior to start date.