Collaborative / Therapeutic Assessment

A guide to conducting Collaborative/Therapeutic Assessment to promote client growth

Mental health professionals are increasingly enthusiastic about and ready to use psychological test data, research, and theory in life-relevant ways to improve diagnosis, client care, and treatment outcomes. With Collaborative/Therapeutic Assessment (C/TA), clients participate actively with the assessor in exploring how their test scores and patterns reflect who they are in their daily lives and how they can learn to help themselves cope with life's challenges.

Using a case study approach to demonstrate how to apply C/TA in practice, Collaborative/Therapeutic Assessment provides practitioners with a variety of flexible and adaptable case examples featuring adults, children, adolescents, couples, and families from different backgrounds in need of treatment for assorted concerns.

Designed for both experienced and novice clinicians, the book begins with a brief history of C/TA, and provides clear definitions of the distinctions among many common approaches. It uniquely presents:

• Eighteen diverse C/TA assessments covering: depression, multiple suicide attempts, severe abuse, dissociation, an adolescent psychiatric ward, custody evaluation, a couple in crisis, and collaborative neuropsychology

• Guidance on how both client and clinician can agree on the best course of action through joint exploration of assessment procedures, results, and implications

• Closely related approaches to psychological testing, including Individualized Assessment, Collaborative Assessment, Therapeutic Model of Assessment, Collaborative/Therapeutic Neuropsychological Assessment, and Rorschach-based psychotherapy

• Clearly labeled Teaching Points in each chapter

Collaborative/Therapeutic Assessment provides psychologists in all areas of assessment, and at all levels of experience, with powerful C/TA examples that can dramatically illuminate and improve clients' lives.