Psychological Assessments

Your therapy session will usually begin with an assessment appointment.   This is to get an understanding of how past and present factors contribute to current distress before therapy can be started.  Psychological assessments can occur routinely, as part of, or before therapy starts, to help people understand themselves more or to help others involved in a person’s care to have a clearer understanding. 

Clinical psychologists and psychotherapists commonly investigate people’s past experiences, often as far back as they can remember, in order to understand how these have shaped the development of someone’s personality and how their personality affects the ways that they think, behave and feel now.  

Often a psychological assessment can be therapeutic in itself.  People can feel empowered and better equipped to make changes in their lives if they have an understanding of what might be underlying their distress.

Following an assessment your therapist will develop collaboratively with you a formulation of your difficulties.  This is a summary explanation pulling together the factors which may help to describe your experiences and from which a treatment plan is developed.