Psychological assessment has been a defining area of practice, training, and research for professional psychologists since the field's inception. We conducted the present survey of professional psychologists as a follow-up to surveys conducted by the American Psychological Association in the 1990s to describe (a) current psychological assessment practices and trends; (b) demographic factors and beliefs associated with assessment use; (c) barriers discouraging assessment use; and (d) factors that may encourage psychologists to make assessments a larger part of their practices. Our survey supports the common perception that, in general, assessment represents a smaller part of the practices of professional psychologists than before managed care; however, for psychologists in some specialty areas and settings (e.g., forensic psychology, inpatient settings), assessment represents a significant portion of their work. Moreover, the large majority of psychologists believe psychological assessment is a valuable aid in making diagnostic decisions and treatment recommendations. Many psychologists identify that greater coverage by third-party payers, as well as having access to less costly assessment instruments, would enable greater use of assessment.
We compared the Rorschach performance (using the Comprehensive System; Exner, 1986) of 29 unipolar depressed, 15 bipolar depressed, and 18 bipolar manic inpatient subjects (N = 62) classified on the basis of the Research Diagnostic Criteria (RDC; Spitzer, Endicott, & Robbins, 1985). The three main groups differed from one another on a variety of variables, especially those related to ideation and information processing. One finding of particular importance was that bipolar depressed subjects, like bipolar manic and unlike unipolar depressed subjects, showed a high level of cognitive slippage. These results suggest that the Rorschach possesses utility in the differential diagnosis of affective disorders.
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