Clinical Assessment and Diagnosis

Question 1

What is the difference between psychological assessment and clinical diagnosis?

Answer 1

• Psychological assessment: The process by which clinicians, using tests/observations/interviews summarise the client’s symptoms and problems.
• Clinical Diagnosis: The process through which the clinician arrives at a “summary classification” by following a clearly defined system, e.g. the DSM-5.

Question 2

What are the 6 basic elements of assessment after identifying the presenting problem?

Answer 2

1. Situational, or persistent and long-term, or a combination?
2. Recent decline in cognitive functioning?
3. Duration?
4. Prior help?
5. Self-defeating behaviour?
6. What coping methods?

Question 3

What is dynamic formulation?

Answer 3

Integrating the diverse (and often conflicting) information about the problem into a consistent and meaningful picture, in order to help with treatment and prognoses.

Question 4

What are 5 potential ethical issues in assessment?

Answer 4

1. Cultural bias of the instrument/clinician.
2. Theoretical orientation of the clinician.
3. Under-emphasis on the external situation.
4. Insufficient psychometric evaluation.
5. Inaccurate data/premature evaluation.

Question 5

Differentiate between the categorical, dimensional, and prototypal models of classification.

Answer 5

• Categorical: Assumes that all behaviour can be divided into “healthy” and “disordered”, and within the latter there are discrete, non-overlapping classes of disorder with a high degree of within-class homogeneity.
• Dimensions: Assumes that a person’s typical behaviour is the product of differing intensities along several definable dimensions.
• Prototypal: A conceptual entity that depicts an idealised combination of characteristics that more or less regularly occur together in a less-than-perfect or standard way.