clinical assessment the systematic evaluation and measurement of psychological biological and social factors in an individual presenting with a possible psychological disorder diagnosis the process of determining whether the particular problem afflicting the individual meets all criteria for a psychological disorder according to the DSM 5 3 basic concepts help determine the value of our psychological assessments reliability the degree to which a measurement is consistent if you test the same patient multiple times you should get the same result each time inter rater reliability 2 or more different people who conduct the assessment raters will get the same results from the assessment test retest reliability making sure assessment techniques are stable across time if you take the test on Tuesday and then on Thursday you should get the same result validity the degree to which a technique measures what it is designed to measure concurrent validity if the results of your new assessment produce similar results as a more established better known assessment your new assessment has concurrent validity predictive validity how well your assessment tells you what will happen in the future standardization application of certain standards to ensure consistency across different measurements the standards may apply to procedures of testing scoring evaluating data clinicians use a mental status exam to organize info obtained during a clinical interview organized in a way that will help them determine if someone has a psychological disorder the exam involves the systematic observation of an individual s behavior and has 5 categories thought processes speech patterns can reflect thought processes scattered disorganized etc content of speech can also reveal abnormal thought processes for example delusions hallucinations or ideas of reference thinking everything everyone else does relates to you mood affect affect feeling state that accompanies what we are saying i e laughing when we say something funny if our affect matches what we are saying it s called affect appropriate appearance behavior intellectual functioning sensorium general awareness of our surroundings awareness of person self clinician place time is called oriented times three in addition to a clinical interview a behavioral assessment can be used to assess a patient it is often used for patients for whom an interview wouldn t be effective such as young children or people who aren t verbal due to their disorder a behavioral assessment uses direct observation to assess an individual s thoughts feelings behavior in specific situations contexts since they can t always observe someone in their home or workplace clinicians create analogue settings conditions that mimic simulate real life situations in which to observe them observational assessment focuses on antecedents behavior and consequences relating to a specific behavior the ABCs of observation reactivity people act differently when they know they are being observed monitored projective tests are used to get info on people s subconscious they include a variety of methods in which ambiguous stimuli are presented to people and they are asked to describe what they see people project their own personality unconscious fears onto the ambiguous stimuli without realizing it they reveal their unconscious thoughts to their therapist Rorschach test standardized version of it called the Comprehensive System rely heavily on theory for interpretation there is lots of room for interpretation of responses Thematic Apperception Test TAT uses imagination of patients to reach their unconscious again lots of room for interpretation of responses personality inventories like the MMPI use an empirical approach collection evaluation of data w little room for interpretation of results doesn t examine individual responses but rather examines the pattern of responses to see whether it resembles patterns from groups of people who have specific disorders IQ tests predict academic success the first of its kind was the Stanford Binet test it tests for attention perception memory reasoning and verbal comprehension IQ is not the same thing as intelligence neuropsychological tests measure abilities in areas like receptive expressive language attention concentration memory to help clinicians assess whether there is brain impairment assesses brain dysfunction by observing the effects of the dysfunction on someone s ability to perform certain tasks you can see the effects of the damage Bender Visual Motor Gestalt Test has people draw shapes they see on a card it is very simple and while it allows you to assess whether brain dysfunction exists it doesn t allow you to determine the nature or location of the problem more advanced tests that allow you to locate the problem are the Luria Nebraska Neuropsychological Battery and the Halstead Reitan Neuropsychological Battery neuroimaging techniques allow us to look at the structure function of the brain CT scans and MRIs allow you to look at brain structure helps you locate damage PET scans allow us to see which parts of the brain are working which have high low neurological activity can help us look at varying patterns of metabolism that might be associated w different disorders SPECT is a less accurate less expensive more commonly used version of a PET scan another method that allows us to assess brain structure function specifically and nervous system activity generally is psychophysiological assessment psychophysiology measurable changes in the nervous system that reflect emotional or psychological events EEG measures electrical activity in the brain when brief periods of EEG patterns in response to particular events are recorded the response is called an event related evoked potential these patterns are often affected by psychological emotional factors alpha waves occur in healthy relaxed adults delta waves occur when we are in deep sleep GSR measures sweat gland activity controlled by the PNS in response to emotional stimuli prognosis likely future course of a disorder under certain circumstances idiographic strategy used to determine what is unique about an individual s personality cultural background or circumstances lets us tailor our treatment to the person nomothetic strategy used to determine a general class of problems to which the presenting problem belongs attempting to name classify the problem taxonomy scientific classification nosology taxonomy in a