Psychological Assessment

Institute of Arts and Sciences
Romaisa Faisal
BS Psychology (Sem 5)
Roll # 22
Psychological Assessment
Assignment #1
Question No 1:
What Ethical Practices are required to be considered for psychological
assessment?
Answer:
According to American Psychological Association (APA), there are some ethical
Principles and code of conducts to be considered for psychological testing or assessment. There
are 6 basic principles and ethical standards. These principles are meant to guide psychologists.
These ethical codes are applied to psychologists during clinical practices of psychology,
research, teaching, supervision, development of assessment instruments, educational counselling,
and other activities as well. These general principles are explained below:
General Principles:
1. Competence:
Psychologists should know their competence and limitations of their expertise. They should
provide only those services and techniques in which they are qualified by education, training,
and experience. This standard stipulates that in an emergency situation, professionals may
provide services even if it falls outside the scope of their practice in order to ensure that access to
service is provided.
2.Integrity:
Psychologists should promote integrity in practice of Psychology. They should be honest, fair
and respectful in describing their qualifications, services, research. They should not lie, deceive
or mislead.
3. Professional and Scientific Responsibility:

Psychologists uphold professional standards of conduct, clarify their professional roles and
obligations, accept appropriate responsibility for their behavior. They should consult with other
professionals and institutions in need to serve in the best interest of patients and clients. They
should consult with other professionals or colleagues to prevent or avoid unethical conduct.
4. Respect for people’s right and dignity:

Psychologists should consider about giving appropriate respect to the fundamental rights and
dignity of other people. They should respect the rights to privacy and confidentiality, self-
determination. They should be aware of the cultural, individual, role differences including age,
gender, race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation etc. They should remove any
biases based on the mentioned factors.
5.Concern for others welfare:

They should consider the welfare of those with whom they interact professionally.
6. Social Responsibility:
Psychologists should be aware of their professional and scientific responsibilities to the

community. They should apply their knowledge in order to contribute to human welfare.
Ethical Standards:
There are some basic ethical codes according to the APA, some of which are as follows:
 Ethics and law:

If psychologists’ ethical responsibilities conflict with the law, psychologist should make known
their commitment to the ethic code and should take steps to resolve the conflict in a responsible
manner.
 Boundaries of competence:
Psychologist should provide services, teach and conduct research only within the boundaries of
their competence, based on their education, training and experience.
Describing the nature and results of the psychological services
When a psychologists provide assessment, evaluation, treatment, counseling, consultation,
research, they should describe the nature of their services to recipients in a language that is
understandable. The recipients should have the information beforehand.
 Human Differences:
Psychologists should consider differences of age, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity etc.
 Sexual Harassment:
Psychologists must not engage in sexual harassment. Sexual harassment is sexual solicitation,
physical advances, verbal or nonverbal con duct that is sexual in nature.
 Privacy and Confidentiality:

This standard outlines psychologists’ responsibility with regards to maintaining patient’s
confidentiality. Psychologists are obligated to take reasonable precautions to keep clients
information private. However, there are some limitations to the confidentiality. Sometimes
psychologists have to disclose the information of the client in order to consult with other
professionals.
Question No 2:
How to make a psychological report? Write its basic contents.
Answer:
A psychological assessment can include numerous components such as norm-referenced
psychological tests, informal tests and surveys, interview information, school and medical
records, medical evaluation, and observational data. All these are used to develop a report based
on an individual’s abilities and behavior. Such report is known as psychological report.
Basic content of Psychological Report:

1. Identifying Information:
In the first step, state the name, age, marital status, sex,
occupation, race, nationality, and religion, previous admissions for the same or a different
condition, with whom the patient lives.
2. Chief Complaint:
State the client’s chief complaint. State why the client came to the
psychologist.
3.Assessment Procedure:
This section provides a brief description of the evaluation process.
Often this is in the form of a list of procedures. It usually begins with the lists of names of tests
that were administered, the name and types of additional procedures like observations or rating
scales.
4. History of Present Illness:

Collect the history of client’s current problem. Collect data
about the development of symptoms or behavioral changes that a patient is experiencing. Ask
how the illness has affected the client’s life activities and personal relations.
5. Past Psychiatric and Medical History:

Collect information and write about the past
medical condition, name of hospital, type of treatment, length of illness, and effects of treatment.
6. Family History:
State the family history of client.
7. Personal History:
State the history of patient’s life from infancy to the present, emotions
experienced with different life periods, painful and stressful events in client’s life.
8. Behavioral Observations:
Write the summary of the observations and impressions derived
from the interviews of the client. The observations can be made from the following ways:
 Appearance: Note the clients’ appearance and behavior during the interview, attitude
towards the examiner, cooperation, attention etc. Observe the general description
including the posture, clothes, grooming, health, hair, nails, signs of anxiety by observing
whether the hands are restless, moist or perspiring.
 Speech: Observe whether the sound of the client is slow, slurred, loud or whispered etc.
 Mood and affect: Mood is the sustained emotion of a person which colors the
person’s perception of the world. During interview, also note whether the patient is
feeling depressed, anxious, angry, irritable, euphoric, empty, guilty etc.
Affect is the outward expression of the patient’s inner experiences. Evaluate patients
affect whether the patient is broad, restricted or blunt.
 Thinking and perception: Observe the form of thinking in the patient. Note the
overabundance of the ideas, flights of ideas, slow thinking, stream of thought, incoherent
speech etc. Also observe the content of the thinking i.e. preoccupations about the illness,
obsessions, compulsions, phobias, suicidal thoughts, anti-social urges or impulses.
 Sensorium: Observe the alertness, orientation and concentration of the patient. Also
observe the memory of the patient. Ask them questions about the recent, immediate, short
term and long term memory. Also observe the ability to calculate and about the general
knowledge and also about the reasoning.
 Insight: Observe the degree of personal awareness and understanding of illness.
Observe if they are aware of the illness or are they are in complete denial.
 Judgement: Observe the social judgement. Social judgement is the subtle
manifestations of behavior that are harmful to the patient and contrary to acceptable
behavior in the culture.
9. Test Results:
This section is often the longest part of the psychological report. It provides a
summary of the findings from all the formal evaluation tests. It includes all test scores.
10. Interpretation and Conclusion:

This section includes a clear explanation of the results of
the complete assessment. Psychologist use the test results and observations obtained during the
interviews and interpret. This will lead to the conclusion.
11. Recommendations:
In this section, specific suggestions are offered regarding strategies that
may be helpful for the patient.
References:
American Psychological Association. (2017). Ethical principles of psychologists and code of

conduct (2002, amended effective June 1, 2010, and January 1, 2017).
http://www.apa.org/ethics/code/index.html
https://www.aguafria.org/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?
moduleinstanceid=19166&dataid=15414&FileName=nasp_reports.pdf
https://www.slideshare.net/DenSarabia/psychological-report-writing

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Institute of Arts and Sciences

3. Professional and Scientific Responsibility:

4. Respect for people’s right and dignity:

5.Concern for others welfare:

Psychologists should be aware of their professional and scientific responsibilities to the

 Ethics and law:

 Privacy and Confidentiality:

Basic content of Psychological Report:

4. History of Present Illness:

5. Past Psychiatric and Medical History:

10. Interpretation and Conclusion:

American Psychological Association. (2017). Ethical principles of psychologists and code of

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