Clinician's Guide to Psychological Assessment and Testing

Standardised psychological testing is often essential for reliably determining the presence of a wide range of psychiatric and personality disorders, along with effectively addressing related issues that may require a psychological referral. This nuts-and-bolts guide to conducting efficient and accurate psychological testing in clinical settings provides mental health professionals with experienced guidance in the entire process, and includes a complete set of forms and templates for all aspects of assessment and testing, from the initial referral and diagnostic interview to the final report. Based on the author's experience with over two thousand psychological and neuropsychological testing cases, this highly practical book presents a standardised process of assessment, testing, interpretation, report-writing, and presenting feedback to patients, family members, and other professionals. Actual case examples of patients from a wide age range illustrate the assessment and testing process in action. The text provides printed and electronic versions of referral and related forms, initial psychological assessment report templates that include critical areas of coverage for obtaining insurance approval, and interpretation tables for an exceptional inventory of key standardised psychological tests. Integral to the book is a review of psychological tests in seven key categories that most effectively address differential diagnostic dilemmas and related referral questions that clinicians are likely to encounter in practice. It also provides effective strategies for selecting the appropriate tests based on the particular diagnostic questions, guidance for successfully obtaining insurance approval for a targeted yet feasible number of testing hours, and an efficient system for simultaneous test interpretation and report writing.