Clinical assessment involves evaluating an individual's strengths and weaknesses, conceptualizing the problem, and prescribing treatment. The assessment process begins with a referral question from the referral source. The clinician must understand the precise referral question being asked. The assessment interview is a basic and useful technique where the clinician can exercise skill and adaptability to make clinical decisions. Establishing rapport through a comfortable atmosphere and mutual understanding of the interview purpose allows the clinician to achieve the interview goals. Different types of interviews like intake, case history, mental status, crisis, and diagnostic interviews each have specific purposes in the assessment process.

1. ASSESSMENT IN CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY

2. CLINICAL ASSESSMENT Involves an evaluation of an individual’s strengths and weaknesses, a conceptualization of the problem at hand (as well as possible etiological factors), and some prescription for alleviating the problem. it is an ongoing process– even an everyday process, as in psychotherapy.

3. Before a clinician can prescribe a treatment, he/she must first understand the nature of the illness. A clinician’s capacity to solve clinical problems is directly related to his/her skill in defining them.

5. THE INTERVIEW The assessment interview is at once the most basic and the most serviceable technique used by the clinical psychologist. Its wide range of application and adaptability make it a major instrument for clinical decision making, understanding, and prediction.

6. THE ART OF INTERVIEWING Except in the most structured, formal interviews, there is a degree of freedom to exercise one’s skill and resourcefulness that is generally absent from other assessment procedures. Decisions as to when to probe, when to be silent, or when to be indirect or subtle test the skill of the interviewer.

7. INTERVIEWING ESSENTIALS AND TECHNIQUES Physical setting Nature of the patient Training and supervised experience

8. Physical Arrangement Privacy and protection from interruptions. The office or its furnishings can be distracting. Many clinicians prefer offices that are fairly neutral, yet tasteful.

9. Note-Taking and Recording A few key phrases jotted down will help the clinician’s recall. However, any attempt at taking verbatim notes should be avoided (except when administering a structured interview). It may prevent the clinician from attending fully to the essence of the patient’s verbalizations.

10. Excessive note-taking tends to prevent the clinician from observing the patient and from noting subtle changes of expression or slight changes in body position. It’s easy to audiotape or videotape interviews. Under no circumstances should this be done without the patient’s fully informed consent.

11. RAPPORT Involves a comfortable atmosphere and a mutual understanding of the purpose of the interview. A good rapport can be a primary instrument by which the clinician achieves the purposes of the interview.

12. COMMUNICATION Beginning Session - casual conversation - a brief conversation designed to relax things before plunging into the patient’s reasons for coming will usually facilitate a good interview.

13. TYPES OF INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

14. VARIETIES OF INTERVIEWS Intake-Admission Interview (1) to determine why the patient has come to the clinic/hospital (2) to judge whether the agency’s facilities, policies, and services will meet the needs and expectations of the patient. (3) to inform the patient of such matters as the clinic’s functions, fees, policies, procedures, and personnel.

15. Case-History Interview - the clinician is interested both in concrete facts, dates, and events and in the patient’s feelings about them. -it covers both childhood and adulthood, and it includes educational, sexual, medical, parental-environmental, religious, and psychopathological matters.

16. Mental Status Examination Interview - is conducted to assess the presence of cognitive, emotional, or behavioral problems. - it is important for clinical psychologists to be familiar with the MSE because these interviews are one of the primary modes of clinical assessment for a variety of mental health professionals (including psychiatrists).

17. Crisis Interview - Increasingly, clinicians have been functioning in novel settings, including: **storefront clinics **telephone hotlines specializing in advice or comfort to drug abusers, to parents who have dysfunctional children, or to persons who are just lonely.