Chapter 4

Question 1

Psychological assessment:

Answer 1

procedure by which clinicians, using psychological tests, observations, and interviews, develop a summary of a client’s symptoms and problems

Question 2

Clinical diagnosis:

Answer 2

process through which a clinician arrives at a general “summary classification” of the patient’s symptoms by following a clearly defined system such as DSM-5 or ICD-11 (International Classification of Diseases)

Question 3

Reliability:

Answer 3

A term describing the degree to which an assessment measure produces the same result each time it is used to evaluate the same thing

Question 4

Test-retest reliability

Answer 4

is whether a test result gives us a similar value today as it did a few days earlier (should allow for change sensitivity though…)

Question 5

Inter-rater reliability

Answer 5

would describe, for example, the degree to which different clinicians agree on a diagnosis

Question 6

Validity:

Answer 6

The extent to which a measuring instrument actually measures what it is supposed to measure

Question 7

Standardization:

Answer 7

The process by which a psychological test is administered, scored, and interpreted in a consistent (“standard”) manner. Many tests are standardized to allow the test user to compare a particular individual’s score to a normative sample

Question 8

Presenting problem:

Answer 8

the major symptoms or behaviors the client is experiencing
•Important to assess social and cultural context in which the individual functions: environmental demands, supports, and/or special stressors
Assessment is an ongoing process

Question 9

factors on assessment

Answer 9

The client must feel comfortable with the clinician
Limits of confidentiality (harm to self or others…)
Reason for referral can be important

Question 10

Clinical Interviews

Answer 10

A clinical interview usually involves a face-to-face interaction in which clinician obtains information about client’s situation, behavior, and personality

Question 11

Mental status exam

Answer 11

(also consider insight/judgement)
examine appearance+behavior, thought processes (i.e. rate, continuity, content of speech), mood and affect, intellectual functioning, sensorium

Question 12

sensorium

Answer 12

awareness of surroundings in terms of person (self and clinician), time, and place, –oriented *3

Question 13

The main purpose of direct observation

Answer 13

is to learn more about the person’s psychological functioning by attending to their appearance and behavior in various contexts

Question 14

direct observation tools

Answer 14

Role-playing is a type of analogue situation; a more controlled behavioral setting for conducting observations
Self-monitoring is a client’s objective reporting of behavior, thoughts, and feelings as they occur in various natural settings (their reactivity matters though)
–Rating scales can help both to organize information and to encourage reliability and objectivity

Question 15

STRUCTURED INTERVIEWS

Answer 15

•Follow a predetermined format •Each question is structured in a manner so as to allow responses to be quantified or clearly determined

Question 16

SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEWS•

Answer 16

Interviewer is required to ask questions in a specific order and in a specific way, but is free to ask follow-up questions to better determine if the interviewee actually has the symptom being assessed

Question 17

UNSTRUCTURED INTERVIEWS•

Answer 17

Subjective and do not follow a predetermined set of questions

Question 18

rosenhan experiment

Answer 18

For the study, eight “pseudopatients” – Rosenhan himself and seven volunteers – presented themselves at institutions across the country with the same symptoms: they reported hearing voices that said, “thud, empty, hollow.” Beyond a few biographical adjustments for privacy reasons, the pseudopatients used their own life stories. All eight were admitted and diagnosed with serious mental disorders. The question became, once you’ve been labeled with a psychiatric condition, how do you prove yourself “sane”…Yet it may not have been all it seemed. A six-year investigation into the real story behind the study has revealed many troubling inconsistencies, suggesting that there were multiple levels of deception in this iconic experiment.

Question 19

INTELLIGENCE TESTS

Answer 19

•Most commonly used adult intelligence test is the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale–Revised (WAIS)•Includes both verbal and performance material –Average IQ= 100, sd=15

Question 20

PROJECTIVE PERSONALITY TESTS

Answer 20

•Unstructured and rely on various ambiguous stimuli such as inkblots rather than on explicit questions–Rorschach Inkblot Test, Thematic Apperception Test, Sentence Completion Test
Point is to elicit analyses

Question 21

Rorschach Inkblot Test,

Answer 21

:, uses 10 inkblot pictures, to which a subject responds to “what you see, what it makes you think of” and “what it means to you”–

Question 22

Thematic Apperception Test

Answer 22

uses a series of simple pictures about which a subject is instructed to make up stories

Question 23

Sentence Completion Test

Answer 23

designed for children, adolescents, and young adults; consists of the beginnings of sentences that clients are asked to complete

Question 24

OBJECTIVE PERSONALITY TESTS –

Answer 24

•Structured; questionnaires, self-report inventories, or rating scales

Question 25

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)▪

Answer 25

Prototype and standard for personality assessment; widely used in clinical and forensic (court-related) assessment ▪Includes 10 clinical scales measuring tendencies to respond in psychologically deviant ways, as well as validity scales detecting honesty/straightforwardness of responses

Question 26

physical assessment

Answer 26

part of psych diagnosis often
Physical examinations are particularly important for disorders that present with physical problems, such as panic disorder or conversion disorder

Question 27

Neuropsychological assessment:

Answer 27

Various tests to measure a person’s cognitive, perceptual and motor performance
Can provide important clues about extent and location of brain damage

Tests are performance based and standardized, comparing performance to normative standards

Question 28

Neurological approaches:

Answer 28

EEG (electroencephalogram) (assesses brain waves, changes in brain can be recorded almost immediately, responses to seizures

Computed tomography scan can reveal images of parts of brain that might be diseased, it’s a structural image

MRI:another technique used to provide images of the brain
–Functional MRI tells us about neuronal activity (the working brain)

PET SCANS: A METABOLIC PORTRAIT•Position Emission Tomography (PET):radioactive agents are injected into a person to show how an organ is functioning

Question 29

IQ evil history

Answer 29

IQ began as a way to id those who needed help and ended up servicing ideologies
Military used IQ test to sort recruits and screen for officer training but people believed in eugenics and created intelligence linked with race scale (which obviously isnt a thing)
Forced sterilization of people with low iq scores in virginia..
Nazis murdered children with low iqs

Did research, found environmental influences
Iq test results have justified awful policies and unscientific ideologies
IQ is good for reasoning and problem solving but not for potential

Question 30

Categorical approach:

Answer 30

seeks to classify behavior into distinct categories; approach used in the DSM
concern of comorbidities

Question 31

THE DIMENSIONAL APPROACH

Answer 31

Dimensional approach: assumes that a person’s typical behavior is the product of differing strengths or intensities of definable dimensions (mood, emotional stability, etc.)
Preserves information about variability

Question 32

THE PROTOTYPAL APPROACH

Answer 32

Prototypal approach: clinician decides if their patient fits the pattern of a “perfect” or “theoretically ideal” case
Provides a standard against which individuals can be compared in order to assign them to a particular category

Question 33

evolution of dsm

Answer 33

Currently in its fifth edition, published in 2013 after considerable debate and controversy Evolved over the past 60 years from vague, jargon-laden description of disorders to today’s “operational” method The number of recognized mental disorders has increased enormously from DSM-I to DSM-5