Collaborative/Therapeutic Assessment (CTA)
Collaborative/therapeutic assessment (CTA) uses psychological testing to help parents understand their children better and find solutions to their persistent problems. Much like a traditional psychological evaluation, interviewing and testing occur, and the information is used for identifying diagnoses and planning treatment. However, following principles grounded in research, parents become active participants in the evaluation process and work with the evaluator in a highly collaborative relationship to make sense of the psychological test results. Clinicians practicing CTA are guided by the values of collaboration, curiosity, compassion, humility, openness, and respect.
I am currently “Level 1” certified in Therapeutic Assessment (TA), which means that I have demonstrated an understanding of its basic tenets. I am in the process of seeking full certification in the TA model with children and families, which will take a while. During this time, I meet regularly with a member of the Therapeutic Assessment Institute faculty, Dr. Marita Frackowiack, Ph.D., for consultation.
I have been a Licensed Psychologist in North Carolina since 2015 and have completed many traditional psychological assessments in the past decade. I have always worked from a collaborative, client-centered philosophy, which is what drew me to CTA in the first place.
You can learn more about CTA from the Therapeutic Assessment Institute. They have many resources at the institute, including videos, links to articles, and a directory of clinicians practicing Therapeutic Assessment around the world.
How CTA Differs from a Traditional Psychological Assessment
In this model, psychological testing is seen as a potential therapeutic intervention as well as a way of gathering data to further understand a client. By adopting a collaborative stance, parents are integral to the process of constructing questions to be answered and making sense of the test results. This differs from traditional psychological assessment, whose main goal is to diagnose disorders and plan treatments. CTA can serve these purposes as well, but its primary goal is to facilitate positive changes in children and families. CTA also tends to be more time-intensive, with testing occurring over the course of a few weeks, rather than a day or two of multiple tests.
The Benefits of CTA
Many clients find that these assessments affect them in a deep way, and research has shown that these effects persist long after an assessment is completed. Research shows that after a CTA, children and adolescents have fewer problem behaviors, feel less distressed, and feel more hopeful about their future. In addition, parents of children or teens who are assessed feel better about themselves as parents and become more capable of managing their children’s problems and feelings. Our experience is that parents and children often benefit from these assessments, perhaps because of the new understandings that families reach about a child’s problems.