By Suzanne C. Doherty, Ph.D.

A Psychological Evaluation provides information about an individual that helps self and others better understand how he or she functions in the world. Various assessment tools are designed to identify personality style and traits, intellectual strengths and weaknesses, preferred coping strategies, how a person organizes his/her experience and constructs a commensurate response system.

A Psychological Evaluation CANNOT predict future behavior. The evaluation is able to identify tendencies that, when strong enough, may result in specific diagnosis of disorder. More important, however, a Psychological Evaluation identifies response styles that may not always be apparent and that help us understand the WHY of a person’s behavior.

Some of the assessment tools used in this process include:

Children’s Personality Questionnaire

Rorschach

Basic Personality Inventory (adult)

House-Tree-Person Drawings

Connor behavior Rating Scales (child)

Thematic Apperception Test

Depression Screening Checklist

Parent-Child Relationship Inventory

Sentence Completion

For more information, contact the Referral Coordinator at (703) 903-9696 ext. 290.