A guide to conducting Collaborative/Therapeutic Assessment to
promote client growth

Mental health professionals are increasingly enthusiastic about
and ready to use psychological test data, research, and theory in
life-relevant ways to improve diagnosis, client care, and treatment
outcomes. With Collaborative/Therapeutic Assessment (C/TA), clients
participate actively with the assessor in exploring how their test
scores and patterns reflect who they are in their daily lives and
how they can learn to help themselves cope with life's
challenges.

Using a case study approach to demonstrate how to apply C/TA in
practice, Collaborative/Therapeutic Assessment provides
practitioners with a variety of flexible and adaptable case
examples featuring adults, children, adolescents, couples, and
families from different backgrounds in need of treatment for
assorted concerns.

Designed for both experienced and novice clinicians, the book
begins with a brief history of C/TA, and provides clear definitions
of the distinctions among many common approaches. It uniquely
presents:

* Eighteen diverse C/TA assessments covering: depression, multiple
suicide attempts, severe abuse, dissociation, an adolescent
psychiatric ward, custody evaluation, a couple in crisis, and
collaborative neuropsychology

* Guidance on how both client and clinician can agree on the best
course of action through joint exploration of assessment
procedures, results, and implications

* Closely related approaches to psychological testing, including
Individualized Assessment, Collaborative Assessment, Therapeutic
Model of Assessment, Collaborative/Therapeutic Neuropsychological
Assessment, and Rorschach-based psychotherapy

* Clearly labeled Teaching Points in each chapter

Collaborative/Therapeutic Assessment provides
psychologists in all areas of assessment, and at all levels of
experience, with powerful C/TA examples that can dramatically
illuminate and improve clients' lives.

Stephen E. Finn, PhD, is the founder of the Center for
Therapeutic Assessment and an Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor
of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the
author of Manual for Using the MMPI-2 as a Therapeutic
Intervention and In Our Clients' Shoes: Theory and
Techniques of Therapeutic Assessment.

Constance T. Fischer, PhD, ABPP, is the Duquesne
University N.J. Dick Endowed Chair of Commonly Outreach. She is
best known for Pioneering and
individualized/collaborative/therapeutic approach to psychological
assessment, for which she received several awards. She edited
Qualitative Research Methods for Psychologists: Introduction
through Empirical Studies and received the Carl Rogers Award
from the APA division of Humanistic Psychology and Dusquense
University's Presidential Award for Scholarship.

Leonard Handler, PhD, ABAP, is Professor and Associate
Director of the Clinical Training Program at the University of
Tennessee, Dr. Handler is coeditor of the Journal of Personality
Assessment and serves on its editorial board. He has received
numerous research awards and has also served as Director of the
University of Tennessee Psychological Clinic.

Mental health professionals are increasingly enthusiastic about and ready to use psychological test data, research, and theory in life-relevant ways to improve diagnosis, client care, and treatment outcomes. With Collaborative/Therapeutic Assessment (C/TA), clients participate actively with the assessor in exploring how their test scores and patterns reflect who they are in their daily lives and how they can learn to help themselves cope with life's challenges.

Using a case study approach to demonstrate how to apply C/TA in practice, Collaborative/Therapeutic Assessment provides practitioners with a variety of flexible and adaptable case examples featuring adults, children, adolescents, couples, and families from different backgrounds in need of treatment for assorted concerns.

Designed for both experienced and novice clinicians, the book begins with a brief history of C/TA, and provides clear definitions of the distinctions among many common approaches. It uniquely presents:

• Eighteen diverse C/TA assessments covering: depression, multiple suicide attempts, severe abuse, dissociation, an adolescent psychiatric ward, custody evaluation, a couple in crisis, and collaborative neuropsychology

• Guidance on how both client and clinician can agree on the best course of action through joint exploration of assessment procedures, results, and implications

• Closely related approaches to psychological testing, including Individualized Assessment, Collaborative Assessment, Therapeutic Model of Assessment, Collaborative/Therapeutic Neuropsychological Assessment, and Rorschach-based psychotherapy

• Clearly labeled Teaching Points in each chapter

Collaborative/Therapeutic Assessment provides psychologists in all areas of assessment, and at all levels of experience, with powerful C/TA examples that can dramatically illuminate and improve clients' lives.

Preface vii

About the Contributors xix

1 Collaborative/Therapeutic Assessment: Basic Concepts, History, and Research 1
Stephen E. Finn, Constance T. Fischer, and Leonard Handler

Part I: Assessments of Individual Adults

2 Therapeutic Assessment of a Dissociating Client: Learning Internal Navigation 27
Judith Armstrong

3 Therapeutic Assessment of Depression: Love's Labors Lost? 47
Marc J. Diener, Mark J. Hilsenroth, Thomas D. Cromer, Frank P. Pesale, and Jenelle Slavin-Mulford

4 Collaboration in Neuropsychological Assessment: Metaphor as Intervention With a Suicidal Adult 69
Diane H. Engelman and J. B. Allyn

5 Collaboration Throughout the Assessment: A Young Man in Transition 93
Constance T. Fischer

6 Therapeutic Assessment for a Treatment in Crisis Following Multiple Suicide Attempts 113
J. Christopher Fowler

7 Using Therapeutic Assessment to Explore Emotional Constriction: A Creative Professional in Crisis 133
Jan H. Kamphuis and Hilde de Saeger

8 Therapeutic Assessment Involving Multiple Life Issues: Coming to Terms With Problems of Health, Culture, and Learning 157
Hale Martin and Erin Jacklin

9 Collaborative Assessment for Psychotherapy: Witnessing A Woman's Reawakening 179
Patrick J. McElfresh

10 Therapeutic Assessment of Severe Abuse: A Woman Living With Her Past 199
Carol Groves Overton

Part II: Assessments of Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults

11 Therapeutic Assessment of an Adolescent: An Adopted Teenager Comes to Feel Understood 225
Marita Frackowiak

12 Collaborative Storytelling With Children: An Unruly Six- Year- Old Boy 243
Leonard Handler

13 Rorschach- Based Psychotherapy: Collaboration With a Suicidal Young Woman 269
Noriko Nakamura

14 Collaborative Assessment of a Child in Foster Care: New Understanding of Bad Behavior 291
Caroline Purves

15 Therapeutic Assessment With a 10- Year- Old Boy and His Parents: The Pain Under the Disrespect 311
Deborah J. Tharinger, Melissa E. Fisher, and Bradley Gerber

16 Collaborative Assessment on an Adolescent Psychiatric Ward: A Psychotic Teenage Girl 335
Heikki Toivakka

Part III: Special Applications

17 Therapeutic Asses…