Assessment Options in Clinical Psychology

Assessment Options in Clinical Psychology
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Assessment Options in Clinical Psychology
Difference between Screening and Assessment
Clinical psychology is comprehensive healthcare that encompasses a wide scope of skills to make it effective. Two of those skills work hand in hand and are sometimes used interchangeably: screening and assessment. Screening refers to the process of identifying the presence of a particular condition or disorder (APA Services, Inc., 2014). Overall, it is often brief and narrow in scope and can establish the need for further evaluation or intervention. On the other hand, assessment is comprehensive and provides a more complete picture of an individual's clinical outlook. It can help professionals identify and indicate the severity of psychological problems and provide treatment recommendations. Assessment techniques get validity by measuring what they claim to measure (Pomerantz, 2020). They should also be reliable with the capacity to provide clinical utility.
In psychology, testing refers to designing a set of standardized questions, problems, or tasks to elicit responses. It enables professionals to measure the cognitive functioning or impairment of individuals (Pomerantz, 2020). Assessment, though a bit different, complements testing by determining the severity of the results provided by testing and recommending the most appropriate interventions.
Active Listening
Active listening is a communication skill that involves listening closely to understand the meaning and the intention of what is being communicated. Active listening entails being present, asking pertinent questions, and showing interest, among other skills. To psychiatrists, active listening helps them during therapy since they can listen and ask questions to fully comprehend the emotions of clients (APA, n.d.). Similarly, undergraduate students can practice active listening while in the classroom by posing questions to their instructors to get a deeper meaning of what they learn.
Open/Closed Questions
In psychology, sometimes, professionals ask their clients questions that require explanations. These are known as open questions. For instance, a professional may ask a client to explain how a particular condition has manifested itself. On the other hand, closed questions require one-word answers, mostly a yes or no (Changing Minds, n.d.). They are usually easy to answer and provide facts from the respondents. For example, during an internship, an undergraduate may ask for a client's age. That is an open question since it does not require an explanation.
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