By Joey Tadie, PhD

Have you ever been in a situation at work, school, or in your relationships when you felt stumped? I imagine you would have liked to have as much information as you could get to help you understand and effectively address the challenge. You also might have wanted to know potential resources that were available to you and how you might access them. Psychological assessments are one of the tools psychologists use to gather this type of helpful information to assist people who might be feeling stumped in their lives.

Simply put, completing an assessment is like looking at yourself and your situation through a new, clearer, and more detailed lens. Ever wondered why you or your child have difficulty concentrating? Maybe you or your therapist want to better understand your strengths as well as areas for growth. Or maybe you are experiencing ongoing difficulties in your relationships and want to understand more about why this happens what you can do about it. Assessments can offer insights, details, and solutions that can’t be discovered other ways. The information you can learn through assessment could even help your doctor ensure you are prescribed the appropriate medication for your mental wellbeing. You wouldn’t arbitrarily take antibiotics for strep throat unless your doctor performed a strep test first. Psychological assessment can be thought of in a similar way. But how can you determine what type of testing is right for you?

Children's AssessmentOur practice has adopted a model known as therapeutic assessment and this approach has a number of advantages and applications over other styles of assessment. Therapeutic assessment involves carefully customizing a testing plan to comprehensively evaluate a range of cognitive, diagnostic, and personality areas. It goes far beyond this in that we spend time getting to know you as whole person rather than a collection of data points on a graph. We collaborate with you closely on defining your goals for assessment as well as helping you identify the questions you are most interested in answering. Upon completing the assessment process, our psychologists then discuss test findings with you in an approachable and easy-to-understand manner while providing an extensive list of specific, concrete, and accessible recommendations that directly address questions you or your clinician might have. This approach often leads to more meaningful and robust findings which can be used to construct a better path forward for you or your loved one.

Adult AssessmentOne of the other unique advantages of our approach to assessment is that we can use it when assessing individuals, couples, or even entire families. We specialize in all three of these areas and have multiple, highly trained clinicians who can form an assessment team to work with you on answering the questions you might have about yourself, partner, or family as a whole. We work with you in a collaborative fashion while educating you along the way about what your options are to treat a condition you might have, or recognize how you can achieve your goals at work, school, or in you personal life.

Denver TherapistSome of the primary goals of therapeutic assessment are to both inform and empower. When taking any sort of journey, it is crucial to have a roadmap (or GPS) that can guide you toward a desired destination, and therapeutic assessment can help provide this kind of clarity. We can help not only in creating this roadmap for your life, but we are also equipped to offer a diverse range of treatment opportunities for individuals, couples, or families to help you effectively utilize the recommendations from your assessment. These treatment options can include various forms of talk therapy, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) which is a highly effective and research validated trauma treatment, and Neurofeedback which can help improve conditions ranging from ADHD to anxiety or depressive conditions. We can also connect you with quality resources or providers in the community to help you get the customized services you want and need. We are happy to offer a complimentary consultation to help you decide how psychological assessment can benefit you or your loved ones. Let us help you see through a new lens that can offer you unparalleled insight into your life and your world.

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