Steps to Complete an Evaluation and Assessment
Your Evaluation and Assessment usually takes 2-4 (or more depending on how severe your problems are) appointments. This number was determined from multiple experiments on timing and overall experience evaluating clients. Due to the vast amount of information and context you and I will need to delve into, one 60-minute appointment is usually not enough to complete a full evaluation and assessment. With that being said, the minimum 2 appointments are broken down below:
During your first appointment:
Policies and Treatment Goals: You will have filled out my policies and brief intake form prior to the first appointment. We will spend the time discussing my policies if you have any questions or concerns.
Diagnostic Assessment: I’ll go over the EASY Diagnostic form you filled out and rule out any diagnoses that require medications.
Necessary Decisions: Based on your EASY and the symptoms you present with, I will determine what decisions you will have to commit on to reach recovery. You can refer to a list of common decisions my clients need to make at this link here.
Homework: Whatever is not finished during the first appointment, I will assign as homework for you to complete.
During your second appointment:
Assessment of Treatment Goals: In one of the intake forms, you’ll have the opportunity to write down what you want to achieve while in treatment. I’ll explore your goals with you on a deeper level and discuss any further action that would be necessary on your part. I will also discuss the models that I believe would be helpful for you to achieve your goals.
Agreement(s): I will review all my findings and recommendations with you and discuss whether we are both in agreement to proceed forward. If there were any level of disagreement, ambivalence, reservation, or doubt we would take the time to discuss it together at this point to determine if my service is the right fit for your needs. The general process of treatment can be found at this web page here.
Homework: I will assign you homework that is usually some form of reading or podcast material so you could learn about the process for improvement.
Subsequent Evaluation and Assessment appointments:
Any of the above steps: Whatever we do not get finished within the first two appointments, we will set up follow up appointments until all the above steps are complete.