Week 11: Integrating psychological assessment with treatment planning and clinical decision-making Flashcards
What are splitters?
They focus on specific techniques.
What are lumpers?
They focus on common factors that facilitate change.
What are the three main approaches to treatment planning?
- Focus on the therapy
- Focus on the diagnosis of symptoms
- Focus on client characteristics
What are the six categories of intervention?
- Treatment: e.g., therapy, medication
- Placement: where the client can receive services
- Further evaluation: to identify whether there are any issues that need investigation
- Alternations to client’s environment
- Education and self-help
- Other: miscellaneous recommendations
What two considerations are needed when making recommendations?
- The most appropriate, evidence-based approach to the client’s presenting issue
- How these recommendations will be communicated to the client
What factors drive clinical decision-making?
- Case formulation
- Understanding the client’s problem
- The problem context
- Treatment specific client characteristics
What is case formulation?
It is a narrative that describes what is going on for the client. It can include information about what predisposes the client to the issue, what preceded the current situation, what perpetuates the issue and the protective factors.
What is “understanding the problem”?
This involves diagnosis, identification of any functional impairment and an assessment of the problem’s complexity, as well as subjective distress.
What is “the problem context”?
Involves considering:
1. Coping style: the person’s tendency to have an external or internal style, where externalisers can act out, attribute blame to others or bad luck, and interalisers locate the cause within themselves.
2. Social support: higher levels of social support often leads to less dependence on interventions.
3. Current life circumstances: any recent trauma, losses, breakdowns or stressors.
What is the systematic treatment selection approach?
An approach developed to assist in clinical decision making for treatment which consists of seven dimensions.
What are the treatment considerations for functional impairment?
Restrictiveness, intensity, medical vs psychosocial intervention, prognosis, and urgency of achieving goals.
What are the treatment considerations for social support?
Cognitive behavioural vs relationship enhancement, duration of treatment, psychosocial intervention vs medication, group interventions.
What are the treatment considerations for problem complexity/chronicity?
Symptom focus vs resolution of thematic unresolved conflicts.
What are the treatment considerations for coping style?
External vs internal attribution.
What are the treatment considerations for resistance?
Supportive, nondirective or paradoxical vs structured, directive intervention.
