Collaborative Psychological Assessment
Here is a brief comparison between a typical information-gathering psychological assessment, and our collaborative assessments.
The Format:
Collaborative Assessments happen over the course of several weeks. This ensures that we get to know you and really understand you. We don't want a "good day" or a "bad day" to give us a biased view. Plus, we want to know you and spend the time talking to you to be sure we can be helpful.
Traditional Psychological Assessments are often completed in one long testing day (sometimes up to 8 hours of testing in a day!).
Who is Involved:
It's called collaborative for a reason. We work hard to involve you, as well as other providers, in the process. We may go talk to your therapist or psychiatrist, go visit a child's school and talk to his teacher, or work with a spouse or parents. We involve who you are comfortable involving to do the best work we can. Most importantly though, we view you as the most important collaborator.
Traditional assessment may not involve anyone else, or may at times call a teacher or doctor to hear their opinion.
The Purpose:
Our goal is for you to feel understood, hopeful, and more confident when you leave our office. This goes beyond a label: we want to understand you as an individual and how to help you.
Traditional assessments often have the simple goal of labeling you with a diagnosis.
The Discussion of Findings Session:
Collaborative assessments may discuss findings as we go along, but we always meet at the end to answer all your questions. We always meet with you for an hour and a half to go over the results of the testing. We don't use psychological jargon, but do use real words to help you know exactly what's going on and what to do next.
Traditional Assessments may include an in-person feedback session or may just send you a report. Often when results are presented, they list numbers and test scores without explaining what they mean for your life.
The written results:
In Collaborative assessments we always send a letter reiterating what we talk about in the last session. This letter is written in everyday language that accurately explains what you may be experiencing. For example, here is an excerpt with one person's question and the resulting answer:
Collaborative Assessments happen over the course of several weeks. This ensures that we get to know you and really understand you. We don't want a "good day" or a "bad day" to give us a biased view. Plus, we want to know you and spend the time talking to you to be sure we can be helpful.
Traditional Psychological Assessments are often completed in one long testing day (sometimes up to 8 hours of testing in a day!).
Who is Involved:
It's called collaborative for a reason. We work hard to involve you, as well as other providers, in the process. We may go talk to your therapist or psychiatrist, go visit a child's school and talk to his teacher, or work with a spouse or parents. We involve who you are comfortable involving to do the best work we can. Most importantly though, we view you as the most important collaborator.
Traditional assessment may not involve anyone else, or may at times call a teacher or doctor to hear their opinion.
The Purpose:
Our goal is for you to feel understood, hopeful, and more confident when you leave our office. This goes beyond a label: we want to understand you as an individual and how to help you.
Traditional assessments often have the simple goal of labeling you with a diagnosis.
The Discussion of Findings Session:
Collaborative assessments may discuss findings as we go along, but we always meet at the end to answer all your questions. We always meet with you for an hour and a half to go over the results of the testing. We don't use psychological jargon, but do use real words to help you know exactly what's going on and what to do next.
Traditional Assessments may include an in-person feedback session or may just send you a report. Often when results are presented, they list numbers and test scores without explaining what they mean for your life.
The written results:
In Collaborative assessments we always send a letter reiterating what we talk about in the last session. This letter is written in everyday language that accurately explains what you may be experiencing. For example, here is an excerpt with one person's question and the resulting answer:
Is this anxiety? Is it something else?
The testing shows you are managing significant amounts of anxiety. This has been going on a long time. Remember when you told me that you first felt anxious when you were in middle school? Back then you felt so nervous sometimes you wouldn't go to school, but would say you were sick to stay home. Now, you said that you are feeling some of those old feelings. Two questionnaires you filled out, (the MMPI2RF and the Beck Anxiety Inventory) showed that you are feeling very anxious and that this may show up in your body. Specifically, you said sometimes you are feeling shaky, having stomach upset, feeling wobbly or unsteady. Those feelings are signs in your body that you are more anxious that other people.
A lot of these nervous and anxious feelings get triggered when you are around your friends and family. We talked a lot in feedback about how you worry a lot about what people think about you. Sometimes, you said, you even assume the worst. You gave me one example of when two friends walked by you. You said you went home and binge-watched "Lost" episodes for two days. When we talked more about it, you told me that when it happened, you assumed it was because of you and that maybe they were mad at you, or that they were talking about you. You said you felt really really down and wanted to go home.
This sounds a little like anxiety, but more than that it sounds to me that you think pretty poorly about yourself deep down. There’s something in you that sometimes assumes people don’t want to be with you...
... The testing we did to look at how you are doing academically showed there aren't any learning problems. In fact, you scored in the above average range in reading, writing and math. That means you are doing better than your peers when you can sit alone with me and do the task. But in class, you said you are struggling. From what we've talked about, you are so busy worrying, and thinking, that you can't focus on lecture. That would make it impossible for anyone to learn or take good notes. Once we help you learn to manage your anxiety, you will find your grades will improve because you will be able to focus better.
Traditional assessments often have a formal report that can only be understood by someone in the field.
Suzy Q is a 25 year old female referred for a psychological assessment due to concerns about inattention and health complains. Suzy Q demonstrated behavioral and emotional symptoms consistent with a diagnosis of Generalized Anxiety Disorder. These symptoms include: upset stomach, difficulty sleeping, rumination, inattention, excessive worry, and lack of appetite.
Suzy Q shows no marked weaknesses in her cognitive abilities. In fact, she scored in the 90th percentile in her verbal reasoning abilities and in the 88th percentile in her ability to understand spatial relationships. She also scored in the 84th percentile on achievement tasks including reading, writing and mathematics.
Suzy Q's achievement scores are not significantly discrepant from her intelligence scores and therefore are not suggestive of any learning problems. Instead, her reported low achievement is likely due to her anxiety disorder interfering with her learning and social relationships.
