Health and Psychology

I did something different.  I decided to write a psychological assessment report directly to a child.  Not about a child.  To them directly.  I'm not sure why I never thought about doing that before or why I thought about it with this specific child.  But it just seems respectful of the child.  After all the child was the one that went through all that evaluation.  In her case it was about three hours on a Sunday.  And it's what I'm going to do from now on when I test a child.  It makes everything clear and treats them as if they have the ability to understand.  The report is shorter, written in kid-friendly language, and tells them what they themselves can do for improving things.  It's just the right thing to do.

It's a mindset.  Last semester I decided to put exams for students on my website.  They can take them as many times as needed until they pass at 100%.  I realized that some students were learning more from taking the tests than they were from the lectures or the readings.  So I decided to change the purpose of the test.  It's to help them clarify the essentials of what they need to learn.  So there are more tests than in most classes and the information is esssential.  I used to get horrific test anxiety.  I threw up before my licensing exams in two states, and the SAT/PSAT exams.  And yes I did well in all of them but it's not an experience I like.  So why not change it?  So I talk to my students as if they are to be my future colleagues, because they are.  I talk to them about what they should expect of themselves as professionals, and what they should expect of their peers as professionals.  It changes how they start to think of themselves.

The same mindset happens when I work with clients.  I have a picture of who they are in the future.  Who they have told me they wish to be. Their best self.  And my interventions are then geared to assist them in reaching that picture.  My job is then to help them remain on tract or notice when they seem to be moving away from what it is they have said they want.

For me it's about ethics.  It's about doing the right thing by someone.  I don't have an ethical perspective that's about law and order and not getting caught doing the wrong thing.  It's not a risk management perspective.  It's about finding out what the right thing is and doing that.  It's a mindset about believing people are willing and able and motivated and wanting to do better.  My professional role then become how to facilitate that.