Psychological Assessment at Houston Family Counseling
At Houston Family Counseling, we want to provide comprehensive mental health care, and sometimes being comprehensive includes psychological assessment. Maybe your therapist, doctor, or someone at your child’s school has mentioned assessment, and you’ve found yourself wondering, “What is this” and “How can it help me?”
Psychological assessment (sometimes also called evaluation or testing) is a broad term, and it integrates multiple sources of information to answer specific questions about you or your child. Within the scope of what we do at Houston Family Counseling, these sources often include a combination of psychological tests, structured clinical interviews, gathering information from caretakers (if applicable), considering early developmental markers, and integrating other demographic information. All of these sources are needed because the focus of psychological assessment is a whole-person, multidimensional perspective on the client and the questions we are aiming to answer.
Psychological assessment can be enormously beneficial in a variety of instances. If you are working with a therapist, a psychological assessment can improve or accelerate your treatment by clarifying a diagnosis, generating new or more targeted treatment goals, or understanding what specific therapeutic techniques might benefit you most.
Often times, therapists refer for assessment when a client is struggling to achieve goals in counseling. Psychiatrists (medical physicians who prescribe medication for psychological disorders or symptoms) also request comprehensive assessments as they work to determine which medications are best suited for a patient’s specific needs. We work closely with referring providers to ensure the evaluation answers relevant questions and meets each client’s unique needs.
Another situation in which assessment outcomes can be transformative is in successfully navigating the educational setting. A thorough academic assessment may help clarify your child’s learning strengths and limitations, and what modifications to their education plan might allow them to succeed with greater ease. These results can provide the support needed to request accommodations in many academic settings. Furthermore, some children may actually need to be more challenged or stimulated in the classroom, and testing can reveal areas of giftedness that might go unnoticed by educators.
For those working through important healthcare decisions, including compliance with treatment and readiness for various surgical procedures, assessment can provide specific information around mental health, allowing your medical providers to focus on your healthcare. Some of these situations include weight management surgery or plastic surgery. We are also proud to offer evaluations specific to transgender persons and the struggles they face in receiving gender affirming care.
Our goal at Houston Family Counseling is to take the mystery (and anxiety) out of the psychological assessment process. We deliver customized evaluations that include diagnoses (when warranted), a written comprehensive report, a feedback session, and recommendations for continued growth. Regardless of the type of assessment, we will work with you to discover what your needs are, and to provide an experience that leaves you feeling informed and equipped to lead a fuller life at home, school, work, and in all of the other communities that are important to you.
– Dr. Morel
