Understand yourself with Therapeutic Assessment   

Some people are familiar with psychological assessment for learning, memory, and attentional problems (called neuropsychological assessment), and for legal and workplace issues (called forensic psychological assessment). More and more, psychological assessment is used in therapy, and is called therapeutic assessment. Some specific questions and issues that can be addressed with therapeutic assessment are:

  • I’ve been in therapy for years but still feel stuck. Can assessment show me a way out of this rut?

  • After a lot of experience in my field, I still feel anxious and judged. What’s going on?

  • I get terrible insomnia before every major social event in my life. Why do I react this way?

  • People tell me I’m hard to get to know. Why is this and what’s the best way for me to handle it?

  • My colleagues tell me I’m abnormally conscientious and rigid. Am I?

  • I have not cried for years, not even after my mother died. What’s going on?

Usually, a therapeutic assessment confirms part of what you already know, but then, there’s that added information, something very true, that you didn’t know, and are glad to now appreciate. You can find out ways you stand out from others (the tests that I use have normative data on thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, of people), so you can see, in black and white, how you are distinct from others. Some research indicates that insight from therapeutic assessment can often be gained more quickly, and with more of an empirical basis, than through therapy alone. Research also shows that people often emerge from a therapeutic assessment with greater clarity and more self-esteem. More on using assessment in therapy can be found here: https://www.therapeuticassessment.com/question1.php

I’ve taught psychological assessment to graduate students for many years, and have 20 years of government contracts conducting psychological assessments of people in high-stress positions. In my private practice, some of my clients have said that a therapeutic assessment has been the key to getting much better with therapy.