Conferência de encerramento - How Principles of Therapeutic Assessment Help Us Assess Clients from Different Cultures

Prof. Dr. Stephen E. Finn (Center for Therapeutic Assessment, Austin, TX, USA) In part because of globalization, psychological assessors around the world are increasingly asked to evaluate clients from cultures different than their own--including cultures about which they have minimal knowledge. How can responsible assessors approach this kind of situation? Can traditional psychological tests even be used? In this presentation Stephen Finn, the developer of Therapeutic Assessment (TA), will discuss how the principles and core values of TA are useful in conducting valid and useful assessments with clients from different cultures. Specifically, Finn will review the basics of phenomenological psychology, which posits that knowledge is always perspectival and there is no absolute “Truth” we can discover about clients using psychological tests. In the 1970’s, Constance Fischer used phenomenology and a “Human Science” viewpoint to develop the procedures of collaborative assessment. Fischer’s word led to Therapeutic Assessment and its core values of collaboration, respect, compassion, humility, and openness. Finn will explain how these values are fundamental for assessing clients whose backgrounds are different than our own. TA involves clients from different cultures in every step of an assessment: 1) carefully explaining the reason why they are being assessed and answering any questions, 2) inviting clients to pose their own questions for the assessment and to teach assessors about their cultures, their families, and their lives, 3) asking clients about responses and behaviors that emerge during the psychological testing, so assessors understand clients’ particular cultural contexts and how they influence test results, 4) reviewing the tentative assessment findings with clients, so they can check their accuracy and give examples from their lives, and 5) involving clients in reviewing written feedback from their assessments and in sharing the assessment results with other professionals involved in their care. Finn will illustrate these practices and the core values of TA using case examples of assessments of clients from diverse cultures. A major goal is to explain and illustrate how we can “get in the shoes” of clients from different cultures, which ultimately leads to psychological assessments that are valid and also often therapeutic.