Integrative Assessment

In this all-new guide, helping professional practitioners, students in training, and those preparing for licensure get valuable assessment information and guidance they can apply to various mental health, school, community, and organizational settings. Using a case study approach—in a practitioner’s voice—this practical resource helps beginning and future counselors understand and use various effective assessment methods, from interviewing and observing to tests and counselor- and client-friendly standardized measures.

Based on the premise that assessment is an on-going information gathering process that relies on multiple methods and sources for making decisions or answering questions, this guide takes a balanced, comprehensive approach that looks at much more than the traditional coverage of assessment alone, including the risks and resources approach to assessment, interviewing principles and methods, exploring presenting problems and readiness for change, informal and formal observations, assessing the therapeutic alliance; standardized risk assessments, dangerousness to self and others, and assessing substance use.

  Practitioners and students in training and those preparing for licensure are engaged in learning the concepts and methods through the book’s helpful case study approach woven throughout each chapter. Learning and understanding is enhanced and accelerated through a number of helpful pedagogical features: the case study approach; practice suggestion boxes; chapter objectives, overviews, and summaries; reflection questions and experiential exercise; and sub-headings for specific tests and measures Readers see first hand the methods, interviews, tests, and measures they will be exposed to and need to understand as professionals. Multicultural counseling competencies are developed through the Cultural Considerations Sections. These sections integrate cultural concepts across different dimensions and help students understand multi-cultural factors that affect the selection and interpretation of specific tests and measures.