Mental Health Testing
Knowing whether you have a diagnosable psychological issues is helpful and can be done with simple mental health tests. However, full mental health testing is designed to go beyond those insights. You should come away knowing how to maximize your strengths and overcome any challenges with the diagnosis. Our mental health assessment testing services provide both avenues.
Benefits of Mental Health Testing
Mental health assessment testing can lead to new insights and deep understanding of your challenges.
Understand Yourself
A diagnosis can help you develop a new understanding and insight about who you are, how you got here, and your potential moving forward. You will be able to find new levels of support and new avenues for self-improvement.
Make Plans
Now that you know your possible diagnoses and the unique ways they play out in your life, you can make plans in many areas of your life that provide the best fit and the best chance to design, implement, and pursue your goals.
Find Your Strengths
Knowing the patterns of thinking and responding that come with your diagnosis can help you see the inherent strengths and challenges you face. You’ll be able to design a plan to maximize your abilities and overcome difficulties.
Measure Improvement
These assessments can be repeated at certain intervals so you can see whether your interventions are working. Know whether your efforts in therapy or choices of self-help or informal strategies are working.
Mental Health Testing Instruments
Personality Assessments
Mental health assessment testing starts with general Personality evaluation designed to assess your day-to-day social, emotional, and behavioral functioning with an eye toward strengths and challenges.
Specific Diagnostic Assessments
If you know what potential diagnoses you may have or want to assess for, we will do evaluations that specifically assesses those areas. Diagnostic assessments can be wide-ranging or specific.
Specific Add-Ons
Mental health assessment testing is not just designed to give you a potential diagnosis but also to help you determine a plan to maximize your strengths and overcome any specific challenges.
Mental Health Testing Overview
Mental health testing helps gather objective information about your unique symptoms, cognitive process, emotional state, and overall psychological well-being. This can help you better understand your psychological challenges and develop appropriate coping and growth strategies.
Types of Mental Health Tests
The types of mental health tests we will do in a battery of psychological testing used for mental health diagnosis include:
1. Diagnostic interviews: Structured and scientifically proven clinical interviews are usually the first thing we will do. These provide a basic list of symptoms that can be used to diagnose disorders, all listed in diagnostic manuals like the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5 list). An example is OCD testing.
2. Historical questionnaires and interviews will be used to see how your symptoms have changed, emerged, and .evolved. It may be helpful to ask your parents for some of this information if you’d like
3. Symptom rating scales: Once we know the basic symptoms, we must dig deeper to understand how they uniquely affect us. Thus we use questionnaires and scales to assess the severity and frequency of specific symptoms you feel, whether they involve depression, anxiety, attention, or something else.
4. Psychological inventories: These assessments go even deeper, evaluating a wide variety of personality traits, thinking patterns, and decision-making.
5. Cognitive assessments: then, we will assess your cognitive abilities to detect any cognitive impairments and see how your thinking relates to your symptoms.
Mental Health Testing Process
We will design the battery of mental health tests around your presenting concerns and the questions you want answered. Sometimes as the mental health testing process unfolds, we might add a measure or two that helps ensure we can create a report that gives you the insights, conclusions, and suggestions you are looking for, such as specific anxiety assessment. We might also mix in other measures in our Assessment Specialties if that may add to the breadth or depth of our conclusions.
Two specific types of mental health testing we provide are Pre-employment Screenings and Return-to-Work Assessments.
The Results of Mental Health Testing
The results of the above mental health tests are then integrated with other clinical information, such as our interviews, observations, and your medical history, to make an accurate diagnosis and develop highly personalized suggestions and goals.
We aim to have the psychological report be as meaningful and helpful as possible. Sometimes people return after a treatment course or after changes or transitions to see if any symptoms have changed. If you are wondering exactly what mental health testing can do for you and what your unique battery might entail, please feel free to contact us.
Example
Joel came in for mental health testing because his therapist suggested it. She and Joel had questions about what an accurate diagnosis was for him. They were unsure why his anxiety and depression were not responding as well as expected to therapy despite Joel being quite engaged and motivated.
We chose a unique battery of mental health tests for Joel. We gave him a Personality evaluation that explored the nature of his anxiety, a questionnaire that explored his depression, and a projective measure. We also interviewed the therapist and did a symptom-focused inventory with Joel.
The evaluation suggested that Joel’s depression had its roots in feeling that as he was getting older, he felt less connected to others and was deriving less meaning from his work. In turn, those feelings created helplessness, which underlies his anxiety. The assessment also elucidates the times Joel feels his best in a way that might help him make that happen more frequently.
As a result of mental health assessment testing, Joel started to understand that he did have a diagnosis of depression, and the symptoms of depression were causing the anxiety. The depression and its causes would become the focus of his therapy. There were also many practical tips in his report that he could use right away.
Joel chose to come back for us to repeat some of the simpler mental health tests six months later, and he found that his strategies were working!
FAQ
These are the common questions people ask about Mental Health Assessment Testing
You can also contact us or schedule a consultation below to get more information.
How Long Will Mental Health Testing Take?
The process usually involves 2-3 sessions lasting 45-60 minutes each. You will also likely be asked to do some psych evaluations online, on your own time. The total time will likely be 3 hours. The first session includes an intake.
How Specific are the Mental Health Testing Results?
Mental health assessment testing will reveal specific diagnoses you have, some that you might have but we’re not sure, and it can rule out some diagnoses as well. It will also give you specific ideas of the strengths and challenges that come with each mental health issue.
When Will I Get the Report and Other Info?
We try to produce a draft psychological testing report around 2-3 weeks from the end of the assessment. Then we will meet to make sure it answers your questions before we send a final signed report.
Can Mental Health Assessment Testing be Combined?
Yes, we often do mental health testing in combination with more general testing instruments such as Personality evaluation and Intelligence Quotient (IQ). This helps you get a more well-rounded approach to understanding your potential and how to overcome barriers.
Final thoughts
Mental Health Assessment Tests
Mental health assessment tests evaluate whether you have a psychological diagnosis. Mental health assessment tests can help guide treatment plans, healp you choose self-help techniques, decide whether you need work or school accommodations, and monitor your progress. Here are some of the mental health assessment tests we commonly use:
1. Beck Depression Inventory (BDI):
– Measures the severity of depression.
– Contains 21 questions about symptoms and attitudes.
2. Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9):
– Screens for depression.
– Consists of 9 questions based on the DSM-IV criteria.
3. Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7 (GAD-7):
– Assesses the severity of generalized anxiety disorder.
– Includes 7 questions.
4. Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HAM-D):
– Evaluates the severity of depression.
– Contains 17 to 21 items depending on the version.
5. Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAM-A):
– Measures the severity of anxiety symptoms.
– Includes 14 items.
6. Symptom Checklist-90-R (SCL-90-R):
– Measures psychological symptoms and distress.
– Contains 90 items covering various symptom dimensions.
7. Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS):
– Assesses psychiatric symptoms such as depression, anxiety, hallucinations, and unusual behavior.
– Includes 18 items.
8. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Checklist (PCL):
– Screens for PTSD.
– Versions include PCL-C (Civilian), PCL-M (Military), and PCL-S (Specific).
9. Mood Disorder Questionnaire (MDQ):
– Screens for bipolar disorder.
– Contains 13 items.
10. Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS):
– Screens for postnatal depression.
– Contains 10 questions.
These specific mental health tests are used to screen for potential challenges.
Contact Us About Mental Health Testing!
We’d be happy to talk to you more about how it can benefit you.