Lesson 3: Assessment in Clinical Psychology

• assessment - combination of all techniques
• testing - more focus on administering tests, only a part of a broader process
• psychological assessment - to diagnose the patient
• clinical psychology - we are after the treatment, and to address the psychological concern of our people
• clinical assessment process

  1. referral question
  2. evaluating the referral question
  3. planning data collection procedures
  4. collecting assessment data
  5. data processing or hypothesis formulation
  6. writing the report
  7. communicating assessment data
• clinical psychologists - trained to systematically examine behaviors of people to determine of there are mental problems, behavior problems, family dysfunctions and evidence of psychopathology
• clinicians gather information (data) on individuals in a formal systematic fashion to determine the problem and subsequent
• before conducting assessment, we have two issues to address

  1. what do we want to know?
  2. how do we find out about it?
• case study guide - provides a general overview of the client
• somatic - blood type, RH factor, autonomic stress response pattern, neuroimaging data
• physical - height, weight, sex, eye color, hair color, body type
• demographic - name, age, address, phone number, occupation, education, income, marital status
• overt behavioral - reading speed, eye-hand coordination, frequency of fighting, conversational skill, interpersonal, occupational competence
• cognitive - response to intelligence test items, reports on thoughts, performance on test of information processing & reality perception and structuring
• emotional - report of feelings, responses to tests measuring mood states, physiological responsiveness
• environmental - location and characteristics of housing, cohabitants, job, family, friends, coworkers, and community
• case study guides - associated with a particular theoretical approach
• diagnoses - also influenced by the theoretical approach the clinician is adopting
• research on reliability and validity of assessment methods are used to determine which type of data are gathered
• diagnostic classification - determining the diagnosis for the problem behavior
• description- understanding the social, cultural and physical context of behavior
• prediction - what will people do in a variety of settings based on their past behavior?
• goals of clinical assessment

  1. diagnostic classification
  2. description
  3. prediction
• DSM-IV is based on a multi-axial classification system
• four main sources of collecting assessment data

  1. interviews
  2. life history
  3. observations
  4. psychological test
• interviews - clinicians may simply ask the client questions to find out what is happening in his or her life
• advantages of interview

  * allows clinicians to obtain sample of the client's verbal and non-verbal behavior in a social interaction

  * flexible