4. Psychological Testing in Practice (30%): For this assignment, you will have the opportunity to practice using psychological assessment/testing results with clients. There are many ways that results can be used as a counselor, such as adjusting the way you work with the client, finding appropriate resources, and/or using the results as part of your treatment/intervention. We will discuss this topic often throughout the course.
• Step 1: Choose a Report. I will upload some sample, de-identified reports on Blackboard Learn. Choose one report that is of interest to you. After choosing a report, you will pretend that the report is about your client who underwent testing, learned about the results from their testing evaluator, and now provided you (their counselor) the report. The idea is that you will use the content of the report to inform how you would prepare your next ‘session’ with the client in terms of how you will approach the client and how you may use the results of the testing report to help the client.
• Step 2: Identify Key Points. Read through the report and identify key points that you believe are important to know in your role as the counselor. You will pretend as if much of the information listed in the report is new to you. Key points could include: details from their background history, strengths and vulnerabilities identified by the testing, themes about their psychological functioning, symptoms and diagnoses, and recommendations provided by the evaluator. Reflect on why this information is important for you to understand about the client.
• Step 3: Outline Your Feedback Session. After reading through the report and identifying key points, you will then pretend like you are preparing for your next ‘session’ with this client. To prepare for the next ‘session’, I would like for you to create an outline for the session detailing key points from the report and how you might approach the session, discuss the assessment and report, and use testing results in counseling (e.g., interventions). Below are examples of what you might consider in planning for the ‘session’:
• Explore the client’s experience of going through the testing process (e.g., feelings before, during, and after; concerns about the testing process).
• Explore what the client may have (or not) taken or learned from the testing report.
• Identify creative ways that you could empower the client and/or reduce stigma (e.g., re-frame benefits of understanding vulnerabilities or insights about oneself).
• Discuss ways in which the client can use the testing results in practical ways (e.g., goals and interventions for counseling).
• Contemplate cultural or ethical considerations regarding their testing experience.
• Step 4: Engage in a Mock Session. Guided by the content of the report and your outline, you will conduct a mock counseling ‘session’ with this client. Work with a partner in your group who can take the role of the client. Provide your partner (‘client’) with your outline so they can take on the ‘client’ role appropriately. The mock ‘session’ can be 10-15 minutes in total. In this ‘session’, you should practice and demonstrate comfort in talking about assessment and testing with clients. Since this will likely be new to you, I do not expect you to be fluent in discussing these topics. I also do not expect you to record a full session in its entirety without stopping the recording. Therefore, you are allowed to record small snippets of the ‘session’ one at a time, rather than recording the full 10-15 minutes of the ‘session’ in its entirety. I am more interested in the thoughtfulness of your outline/planning and your efforts during the ‘session’ rather than the fluency of your counseling skills at this stage and for the purposes of this assignment. I don’t expect you to have a flawless counseling ‘session’, this is more about being exposed to the topics and discussions you will likely have with clients in the future after they complete assessment/testing.
• Step 5: Reflect on the Experience. Please write a 1-2-page reflection about your ‘session’ to describe your experience of conducting the ‘session’; for instance, discussing aspects of the ‘session’ that were challenging and aspects that you felt went well.
