The distinction between second-person and third-person relations and its relevance for thepsychiatric diagnostic interview.

Although the importance of the psychiatric diagnostic interview is undeniable in the actual clinical practice, its peculiarities as a specific kind of interpersonal phenomenon have not attracted much attention in the literature. This chapter approaches the diagnostic interview from the perspective of research on social cognition, by drawing on discussions about the difference between second-person and third-person relations. We start by motivating a picture of the diagnostic interview according to which the clinician has to draw on multiple sources of diagnostically relevant information. This picture leads to the question of how to approach the complexity of the interview, and the role that the distinction between second-person and third-person relations might play for a better understanding of it. By elaborating on a conceptualization of second-person relations which foregrounds the roles of reciprocity and communication, we propose that second-and third-person relations are complementary methodological tools by means of which the clinician seeks to gain a better understanding of the patient.