Psychological Testing

What benefit can you get from a psychological evaluation?

You may be referred by your therapist, psychiatrist, social work case manager, adoption agency, or immigration attorney and wonder how going through the testing process can help you. Benefits can include the following depending upon the type of evaluation for which you have been referred:

–Better understanding of your strengths, insight into your behaviors, and knowledge of areas in which making change would make your life more healthy, safe, or happy

–Help to you and your therapist in developing an effective treatment plan

–Knowledge of whether or not a mental health diagnosis exists which could lead to your obtaining appropriate services to make your daily life easier to navigate

–Information to help you in choosing a career

–Satisfaction of requirements for adopting a child from another country

-Evaluation requested by your immigration attorney in connection with your asylum, T/U visa, or VAWA case

What types of testing are provided?

Career Assessment

See Career Assessment section at the Services link of this website to learn more about what is included in a Career Assessment.

Immigration Evaluation

See the Immigration section at the Services link of this website for more information on these types of evaluations..

Pre-Adoption Assessment

The focus of this type of assessment is typically pre-established by the country from which you are adopting. See the handout entitled “Preparing For Your Pre-Adoption Evaluation” in the Forms section at the Getting Started link of this website. This handout will tell you what is usually included in this type of assessment

General Emotional, Behavioral, Personality Assessments

These are typically assessments done for the purpose of clarifying a diagnosis and serving as a guide to either obtaining certain services or the development of a treatment plan or therapy goals.

What is the typical testing process?

1. Prior to coming in for your initial appointment, you will be asked to complete and return (or bring with you to your first appointment) a set of new client intake forms.
2. A first appointment typically consists of a clinical interview during which information will be gathered about various aspects of your background, daily life, symptoms you may be having, etc.
3. A testing appointment will be scheduled for either the same day or another day. The length of time needed for testing and the number of testing appointments needing to be scheduled will depend upon the number and types of tests that you will be taking. This will vary from person to person and depends upon the reason for testing.
4. For most testing clients, test results will be reviewed with you during a feedback session.. During this session, we discuss your test results and any recommendations based upon those results. If you have been referred for testing by another provider, and in the case of an immigration or pre-adoption evaluation, a written report will be sent to the person who referred you for testing. Please note that in a forensic case, such as immigration evaluation, a feedback session is not held. The finalized report is sent to the referring attorney and any discussion of what is in the report is generated by the attorney.