Clinical psychologists have extensive training in assessing a range of psychological difficulties and determining the most appropriate form of help.  Your initial appointment will last for approximately one and a half hours and is an opportunity to gather information from you about what you feel are you current difficulties and how you would like therapy to help you move forward.

Psychological assessments (‘testing’, ‘evaluations’) often use a combination of methods to find out information about a person and to arrive at an understanding, or explanation, about their behaviour (including risk behaviours), personality, difficulties and strengths.

Assessments can include a discussion with the client, questionnaires, observations, test batteries, and cover a range of different areas such as their personal history, relationships and styles of relating to others, thinking and problem-solving styles, personality types, mental health difficulties/diagnoses and, in some cases, neuropsychological (or cognitive) functioning.

Assessments might be standalone (e.g. for the purposes of establishing a diagnosis or the impact of an event(s) on the individual), or part of making sense of a person’s difficulties to determine what kind of help they need prior to beginning treatment with the therapist.

Please be aware that if you require a (non-legal) detailed psychological report following your assessment this is chargeable at an additional rate to the assessment fee.  Please contact me for information on fees.