Psychological diagnosis is a complex "multidimensional" "multi-instrumental" entity: the diagnostic process must take into account multiple psychic dimensions. To obtain adequate information and try to build an overall image of the person's functioning, it is necessary to use multiple tools. The instrument of choice is the clinical interview (McWilliams, 1999), which bases the choice and use of others and gives meaning to the evaluation process.
The tools through which we obtain this knowledge are those of clinical methodology:
- observation
- clinical interview
- tests
The psychodiagnostic evaluation can have different objectives.
A first possible objective, specific to a clinical context, is to best define the characteristics of a personality and the specific methods it uses to deal with problems and situations, manage emotions, relate to others, in order to understand the cause and the psychological context in which a symptom, a mental disorder, a specific suffering was formed, and therefore to evaluate the best therapeutic strategy and the most appropriate objective for a targeted and realistic treatment project.
In the context of forensic evaluation, in both criminal and civil matters, the objective is to identify the presence or absence of certain traits, or disorders, or resources, or skills, or damages: essentially it involves verifying or falsifying certain hypotheses relating to the psychic life of a subject.
The psychodiagnostic evaluation makes use of tests that must be rigorous, standardized and removed from the subjectivity of the diagnostician in the administration and processing phase, but then open, in the overall interpretation phase, to the emotional, cultural and scientific resonances that arise from the clinical encounter with the patient.
The test battery we propose includes the most used tests in the clinical and forensic field, at a national and international level:
the Rorschach test, the MMPI-2 multiphasic personality questionnaire, or the MMPI-2-RF version, the SCID-PD-5 structured interview, the TAT Thematic Apperception Test, the WAIS-intellectual level assessment scale IV and the family Genogram, a tool developed in a systemic context that allows you to collect a detailed anamnesis of the family history and contextualise the individual profile.
For minors, the Graphic Tests, the WISC-IV scale, the Duss Fables, and the MMPI-A questionnaire for adolescents.
We also propose other tests that can complement this basic proposal.
