PSY 309 Lecture Notes - Lecture 19: Beck Depression Inventory, Thematic Apperception Test, Electrodermal Activity
Lecture note 19 PSY 309:
• Clinical Assessment
• Collecting relevant information in an effort to reach a conclusion
• Clinical Assessment is used to determine
- How and why a person is behaving abnormally
- How that person may be helped
• 3 Categories of Clinical Assessment
• Clinical interviews, tests, observations
• What must be standardized in clinical assessment tools?
• Administration, scoring, interpretation
• Face Validity
• A tool appears to measure what it is supposed to measure; does not necessarily indicate
true validity
• Predictive Validity
• A tool accurately predicts future characteristics or behavior
• Concurrent Validity
• A tool's results agree with independent measures assessing similar characteristics or
behavior
• Clinical Interviews
• These face-to-face encounters often are the first contact between a client
and a clinician/assessor
- Used to collect detailed information, especially personal history, about a client
- Allow the interviewer to focus on whatever topics they consider most important
• Focus depends on theoretical orientation
• Unstructured Interview
• Clinicians ask open-ended questions
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
• Structured Interview
• Clinicians ask prepared questions, often from a published interview schedule
• Projective Tests
• Require that clients interpret vague and ambiguous stimuli or follow
open-ended instruction
• Mainly used by psychodynamic practitioners
• Examples of Projective Tests
• Rorschach Test
• Thematic Apperception Test
• Sentence completion tests
• Drawings
• Personality Inventories
• Designed to measure broad personality characteristics
• Focus on behaviors, beliefs, and feelings
• Usually based on self-reported responses
• Response Inventories
• Usually based on self-reported responses
• Focus on one specific area of functioning
• Examples of Response Inventories
• Affective inventories (example: Beck Depression Inventory)
• Social skills inventories
• Cognitive inventories
• Psychophysiological Tests
• Measure physiological response as an indication of psychological problems
• What do Measure Psychophysiological Tests Mesure?
• Heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, galvanic skin response, and muscle
contraction
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
• Neuropsychological Tests
• Indirectly assess brain function by assessing cognitive, perceptual, and motor
functioning
• Neurological Tests
• Directly assess brain function by assessing brain structure and activity
• Clinical Observations
• Systematic observations of behavior
• Naturalistic Observations
• Occur in everyday environments
• Analog Observations
• Occur in artificial environments
• Humanist View
• Emphasis on people as friendly, cooperative, and constructive; focus on drive to self-
actualize through honest recognition of strengths and weaknesses
• Existentialist View
• Emphasis on self-determination, choice, and individual responsibility; focus on
authenticity
• Existential Therapy Goal
• Accept personal responsibility for problems
• Humanistic Therapy Goal
• Self-actualization
• Socio-Cultural Model
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
