Psychological Assessment -Windsor – Tecumseh – Windsor – Tecumseh – Psychologist – Therapist

Psychological Assessment

There are different types of psychological assessments that serve different purposes. The ones we offer at GSWC include psychodiagnostic assessments, cognitive screening, and career assessments.

A psychodiagnostic assessment aims to establish whether the person has a mental health diagnosis, and if yes, then what kind. Having an accurate diagnosis can lead to effective treatment options and save time and money that would otherwise be wasted on ineffective approaches. Sometimes it can also prevent harm, as some treatment approaches are known to make some mental health conditions worse. Psychodiagnostic assessments can be done for a variety of purposes other than establishing a mental health diagnosis. Here at GSWC we specifically offer psychodiagnostics assessments for the purposes of informing voluntary treatment. We do not offer child custody and access assessments, forensic or court-ordered assessments, or assessments required by the employer. We do, however, do work-related assessments under the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB).

The purpose of cognitive screening is to evaluate the person’s cognitive functioning (such as memory, attention, decision-making, and so on) and whether there is any disruption in these areas. You may think that cognitive difficulties are only associated with conditions such as Alzheimer’s Disease or severe head trauma.

The truth is that more subtle but still impairing difficulties often occur in common mental health conditions such as depression or post-traumatic stress disorder. Cognitive screening can be used to monitor treatment progress and indicate whether there is a need for a more time-consuming and costly neuropsychological or psychoeducation assessment, or another specialist referral.

Career assessment can help individuals zero in on occupations of interest, whether they are just starting out or are switching careers. This would be typically done through an interview, the use of standardized questionnaire tools used in career counselling such as the STRONG Interest Inventory or Self-Directed Search, and other approaches. The goal is to create a selection of potential career options that is narrow enough to allow for subsequent research into, but wide enough to offer a variety of choices.