ETHICAL STANDARDS (original) (raw)
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Testing and Assessment in Clinical and Counseling Psychology
Summer let, 2009
The field of psychological assessment is undergoing dramatic change, perhaps even a paradigm shift. Traditionally, assessment has focused on gathering accurate data to use in clarifying diagnoses and developing treatment plans. Although largely retaining these goals, new approaches also emphasize the therapeutic effect assessment can have on clients and important others in their lives. Evidence accumulating over the past 20 years suggests that this effect can be substantial. On the basis of their meta-analysis of outcome studies investigating the therapeutic effect that assessment can have, Poston and Hanson (2010) contended that psychology needs to reconsider training in assessment to incorporate approaches that emphasize its therapeutic value. They even argued that managed care organizations need to reevaluate delivery of services in light of the efficacy of the new approaches to assessment. This chapter highlights the development of the therapeutic application of psychological assessment, examines its empirical support, discusses how assessment might produce therapeutic change, and outlines the Therapeutic Assessment (TA) approach and illustrates it through a case example. WHAT IS TA? TA is a semistructured approach to assessment that strives to maximize the likelihood of therapeutic change for the client. It has been developed largely through the efforts of Stephen Finn and his col-(2002), and others. TA has incorporated knowledge from a range of psychology to produce an evidence-based approach to positive personal change through psychological assessment. It rests on the commonsense application of the powerful insights that are efficiently available through reliable and valid assessment tools and techniques to a collaborative, respectful, supportive, gentle, and ultimately experiential process of self-discovery.
Education and training guidelines for psychological assessment in health service psychology
American Psychologist, 2021
While recent survey findings suggest graduate programs in health service psychology (HSP) are allocating the same or increased time to education and training in psychological assessment over the last two decades, there is a lack of clear guidance for programs to implement practices associated with quality education and training. These Guidelines (found in full at https://www .apa.org/about/policy/guidelines-assessment-health-service.pdf) were developed to address this critical need. Developed by a task force of the American Psychological Association Board of Educational Affairs in 2018 and 2019, the Guidelines serve to inform faculty/supervisors, students, and the public as to quality practices associated with graduate education and training in psychological assessment. They are organized around seven domains: theory; psychological assessment process; psychometrics; tests and methods; ethics, legal issues, and professionalism; diversity; and supervision. These domains are drawn from a review of the scholarly literature on psychological assessment, as well as graduate psychology education and training. The domains and their associated Guidelines are interdependent, and, while some overlap exists among them, they should be considered in their entirety. While a summary of each section is provided in the present article, the full explanation of each domain is presented in the actual Guidelines document. Public Significance Statement These Guidelines provide a framework for ensuring consistency and quality in the training that graduate students undergo to perform ethical psychological assessment. They highlight the necessary components to ensure that graduates of health service psychology programs are adequately trained in psychological testing and assessment.
Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 2016
Training in psychological assessment has been studied periodically since 1960. The goal of this project was to provide an update of training practices in clinical psychology programs and to compare practices across Clinical-Science, Scientist-Practitioner, and Practitioner-Scholar training models. All APAaccredited programs in clinical psychology were invited to respond to an anonymous online survey about program characteristics and assessment training; a 33% response rate was achieved. Assessment training over the past decade was generally stable or increasing. Training in treatment effectiveness and neuropsychology were areas of growth. Across training models, there was remarkable similarity in assessment instruction except for coverage of projective instruments, number of required assessment courses, and training in geriatric assessment. The most popular instruments taught in clinical psychology programs were the
Training in psychological assessment: Current practices of clinical psychology programs
Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 2014
Training in psychological assessment has been studied periodically since 1960. The goal of this project was to provide an update of training practices in clinical psychology programs and to compare practices across Clinical-Science, Scientist-Practitioner, and Practitioner-Scholar training models. All APAaccredited programs in clinical psychology were invited to respond to an anonymous online survey about program characteristics and assessment training; a 33% response rate was achieved. Assessment training over the past decade was generally stable or increasing. Training in treatment effectiveness and neuropsychology were areas of growth. Across training models, there was remarkable similarity in assessment instruction except for coverage of projective instruments, number of required assessment courses, and training in geriatric assessment. The most popular instruments taught in clinical psychology programs were the
Therapeutic Assessment in Clinical and Counseling Psychology Practice
Kumar/The Wiley Handbook of Personality Assessment, 2016
Psychological assessment has been a core component of clinical and counseling psychology since the formal development of these applied specialties. Spurred on by practical demands for selection and assignment of military recruits during World Wars I and II, the psychological testing movement gained momentum in the first half of the twentieth century. Testing practices of that era were inevitably shaped by the necessities and constraints of that time. Testing large numbers of individuals required expeditious methods, giving rise to the use of fixed test batteries as opposed to individually tailored assessments, and group testing approaches were developed to meet the need for rapid, large-scale assessments. Although individual assessments prevailed within mental health treatment settings, they were shaped by the professional zeitgeist wherein the examiner was the dispassionate expert and the examinee was the subject of the evaluation. This stance was influenced by advances in statistical methods and psychometric studies in testing laboratories, which accorded the respectability of science to psychological methods. It fostered a test-centered (as opposed to person-centered) approach, and emphasized nomothetic over idiographic portrayals of examinees' functioning. The evaluating psychiatrist or psychologist, armed with knowledge of psychological theories and scientific methods, aspired to conduct an objective appraisal of the individual and tended to make diagnostic and dispositional determinations unilaterally. Modifications to the testing approach came from several fronts, including psychoanalytic, interpersonal, humanistic, and phenomenological traditions, each of which critiqued the detached and superordinate role of the examiner. They offered alternative
Journal of Personality Assessment, 2017
This special section of the Journal of Personality Assessment addresses many of the most important issues in assessment today. Assessment is one of psychology's scope-of-practice domains not duplicated by many other licensed professional disciplines. It is good to see that psychological testing and assessment is still alive and well in training programs across the United States. As useful as assessment is now, it could be even more relevant to and aligned with the changes happening in health care, further expanding opportunities for psychologists who do assessment. When we were asked to do this commentary, guest editor, Dr. J. D. Smith (personal communication, 2016) said, "the broad aim of the special section is to examine the methods, models, and means of evaluating the effectiveness of training, teaching, and supervision in personality assessment." The "uses" of personality assessment might be a focus for future exploration as there could be opportunities not currently realized for future growth in this area of practice. The practice of testing and assessment faces challenges that have arisen from issues of reimbursement for these services. We focus in this commentary on challenges for assessment in the health care arena, fully aware that assessment in forensic, consultation, and other areas of practice beyond health care seem not to be challenged by many of the factors we mention. The challenges in health care come from a lack of clarity about how to value assessment services in a fee-for-service health care reimbursement system. These challenges occur along parameters of medical necessity; length of time needed for an assessment; who should perform the actual test administration; and the role of the psychologist in interpretation, record review, report writing, and communication of the results. Each step along this path presents challenges to the way in which assessment has historically been taught based on questions of need, cost, professional qualification, and alternatives to testing, such as the clinical interview and medication approach used almost exclusively by physicians. In meetings of the Massachusetts Psychological Association (MPA) Training Committee, some programs questioned the teaching of psychological assessment due to the frustration of faculty who constantly faced these questions in their private practices. On the other hand, internship sites see the value of assessment and lament the lack of training in assessment in the trainee pool (e.g., Clemence & Handler, 2001).
Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 2000
Psychologists report limitations on psychological assessment services and problems gaining authorizations and reimbursement for these services from third-party payers. Documentation and categorization of these problems and limitations is based on responses from well over 500 psychologists responding to a broad solicitation for feedback. This article explores the barriers to access for assessment services, including resistance to psychological assessment, difficulties in the preauthorization process, problems with reimbursement, the clinical decision-making process, and larger systems issues. The authors make recommendations for redress of these problems through work with the profession, other mental health professionals, managed care, and patients-consumers and through political action.
2005
Section I: UNDERSTANDING THE ASSESSMENT PROCESS: HISTORY, ETHICAL AND PROFESSIONAL ISSUES, DIAGNOSIS, AND THE ASSESSMENT REPORT. 1. History of Testing and Assessment. 2. Ethical, Legal, and Professional Issues in Assessment. 3. Diagnosis in the Assessment Process. 4. The Assessment Report Process: Interviewing the Client and Writing the Report. Section II: TEST WORTHINESS AND TEST STATISTICS. 5. Test Worthiness: Validity, Reliability, Cross-Cultural Fairness, and Practicality. 6. Statistical Concepts: Making Meaning Out of Raw Scores. 7. Statistical Concepts: Creating New Scores to Interpret Test Data. Section III: COMMONLY USED ASSESSMENT TECHNIQUES. 8. Assessment of Educational Ability: Survey Battery, Diagnostic, Readiness, and Cognitive Ability Tests. 9. Intellectual and Cognitive Functioning: Intelligence Testing and Neuropsychological Assessment. 10. Career and Occupational Assessment: Interest Inventories, Multiple Aptitude, and Special Aptitude Tests. 11. Clinical Assessment...