Psychological assessments are an integral component of behavioral health treatment processes, as they provide essential data necessary for three main purposes.
Standardized tests are commonly employed as part of psychological assessments. While they provide scores to compare, minority group test takers could experience bias due to culture, language or gender factors when taking these exams.
Diagnosing a Mental Health Issue
All people experience highs and lows in their mental health from time to time. When these changes become more than simply minor fluctuations, and begin affecting aspects such as your work, family life or school experience and overall well-being it may be time to seek professional assistance.
Psychological assessments can be used to pinpoint the source of issues and devise a treatment plan to address them. Psychological assessments may take the form of clinical interviews or standardized testing methods.
At a psychological evaluation, it’s vital that you provide honest and accurate responses. Furthermore, trying to see ahead which tests and assessments you will undergo could adversely impact the results and lead to a false diagnosis. Psychologists take great care in reviewing all available data in order to create an overall diagnosis; using this knowledge they are then able to create personalized treatment plans specifically designed for you.
Setting Treatment Goals
Psychologists are trained to administer and interpret psychological tests and assessments in order to obtain an in-depth picture of their clients’ mental health and functioning. Once this data has been combined with results of any interviews or document review processes, it serves as the basis of treatment planning.
This study demonstrated that perceived goal clarity decreased significantly when patients and therapists explicitly defined and regularly discussed treatment goals at the outset of treatment sessions, regardless of how many sessions had already taken place. This result remained true even after controlling for how many sessions patients had attended so far.
An individual who experiences shame or embarrassment about their mental health could make the goal of improving communication with their partner one of their goals. Another issue related to mental illness and therapy can be perceived stigma, so therapists might help their client understand how stigma impacts both themselves and others in their life.
Identifying Strengths and Weaknesses
Mental health professionals use various psychological assessment tools to accurately gauge an individual’s abilities and strengths. These range from intelligence tests to projective measures which present test-takers with images such as inkblots or pictures with no clear meaning, asking them what they see or imagine the images represent (based on the belief that people project underlying motivations onto unrelated external stimuli).
Psychologists also utilize clinical interviews as part of their assessments. These may be structured or unstructured and last anywhere from a few minutes up to several days depending on what information the psychologist needs for his evaluations.
An accurate and comprehensive psychological evaluation is the ideal way to gather all of the necessary data in order to make treatment decisions, so MHCA always suggests starting your relationship with us through an initial diagnostic assessment. Our Phoenix office recommends this as the optimal starting point.
Finding the Right Therapist
Psychological assessments often consist of various tests; however, one of the most vital parts is often the clinical interview. This step of the assessment seeks to gain more information on your or a loved one’s history that could shed light on current symptoms.
Therapists should discuss the results of an assessment in a way that is meaningful and understandable to you as an individual. This conversation can help patients become aware of the source of their issues as well as gain an in-depth knowledge about how these challenges can be overcome.
Therapists use test results to help diagnose mental health conditions and develop treatment plans. Before opting for psychological testing, be sure to select an experienced licensed psychologist; many therapists advertise their credentials and areas of expertise on their websites to make it easy to make an informed decision about which assessment to receive.