In psychological evaluations, at times the approach can be deficits based, meaning that areas of weakness are the primary or sole focus of the report. Additionally, there is evidence that supports using more mechanized approaches (considering test data at face value) in assessment rather than clinical judgement or intuition to better predict performance (Neumann et.al., 2023). However, this style can result in missing important details that can better inform diagnosis. Further, if providing a diagnosis is the only goal, this narrows the window of helpful information that can be provided in a report- often, experiences do not neatly fit into symptoms or symptom clusters, and instead require additional explanation. Therefore, combining approaches with holistic and strengths based perspectives can be the most beneficial for identifying areas of need and methods of improvement (Rashid & Ostermann, 2009).
There are several ways that a holistic and strengths based mindset can best be integrated throughout the evaluation process. The first is during the actual assessment administration. When completing an evaluation, gathering extensive and detailed background information can promote a better ability to provide more accurate diagnoses and recommendations. While it is impossible to know everything about a person’s history, gathering as much information as possible helps to expand the likelihood that a summary will touch on areas of positivity and resilience, as well as areas that require additional attention and care. Further, when selecting what assessments and subtests to give, it can be tempting to only administer those that will identify problems and concerns, rather than administering an assessment in entirety. However, this often means an opportunity to identify strengths and adaptive strategies a person has developed is missed, suggesting that when possible, a fuller picture of functioning should be obtained.
In report writing, a holistic approach is can be applied when writing up background information. In the interest of time, it is often easier to leave out information that does not seem immediately relevant, or to only report basic details. However, this then restricts the background and reported experiences that can be included and explained in the summary. A summary ties together test results and background information to provide diagnoses and explanations for concerns experienced, and it is just as important to explain challenges that may not be arising from a diagnosis. If only the diagnosis is addressed, it can limit the progress and insight a person can achieve, which in turns reduces the benefit a report can have. Further, including strengths and adaptive strategies in the summary and recommendations both can allow someone to leverage these areas in order to increase their performance or reduce their distress in other ways (Rashid & Ostermann, 2009).
Lastly, including a holistic and strengths based approach in an evaluation can have wider applications as well. Mechanized and automated results can best predict performance and suggest strengths and weaknesses, however, a holistic and strengths based approaches can provide benefit in that results can provide more personal insight. Recommendations can be more specifically tailored to utilize skills someone already possesses, meaning that they may be more motivated to engage in them. Further, it stands to reason that someone would feel more validated and understood by holistic results versus simply mechanized data, indicating the need for both. Including a strengths based perspective as well increases benefit by allowing someone not only to see improvement in psychological symptoms, but overall well-being (Rashid, 2015). Therefore, combining these styles of assessment can result in not only accurate results, data and predictions, but consideration of the person as more than a number, increased focus on adaptive strategies, provision of validation, and improvement in and explanation for areas not defined by a diagnosis.
Neumann, M., Niessen, A. S. M., Hurks, P. P. M., & Meijer, R. R. (2023). Holistic and mechanical combination in psychological assessment: Why algorithms are underutilized and what is needed to increase their use. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 31, 267–285. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijsa.12416
Rashid, T. (2015). Strength-Based Assessment. In Positive Psychology in Practice, S. Joseph (Ed.). https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118996874.ch31
Rashid, T. and Ostermann, R.F. (2009), Strength-based assessment in clinical practice. J. Clin. Psychol., 65: 488-498. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.20595
