The idea of seeking psychiatric care in Indiana may seem daunting if you are unfamiliar with what to expect. If you seek psychiatric care for yourself or your child, you or your child will need to undergo psychological evaluations as part of an intake process. Try not to be intimidated as this testing is important for your mental healthcare provider to know how to best treat you going forward.
What Is Psychological Evaluation?
When you are being assessed, some tools your care provider may use include:
- Questionnaires
- Checklists
- School or medical records
- Interviews
- Observational data
These tools will give your care provider an in-depth picture of how to best help you. They will be able to put together a treatment plan that is optimized to meet your needs and get you feeling better.
The evaluations serve a similar purpose to blood tests or ultrasounds in a medical setting. This includes diagnosing, assessing, and treating a problem for the patient.
Each patient is unique, so the tools or combination of tools used in each of their psychological evaluations will be, as well.
These tests and tools are not pass or fail, and you can’t give a wrong answer. Being open and honest during your assessment will help you and your doctor set up proper treatment.
What Can Psychological Evaluations Do?
Some ways these results are used include:
- Diagnosing learning disorders in children
- Assessing the extent of brain injury or dementia/memory disorders
- Diagnosing mood or emotion disorders
These tests help doctors get down to the root cause of behaviors or diagnose them to move forward with treatment.
If you feel you might be interested in starting psychiatric care, you may wish to reach out to a mental health provider near you.