Assessment in Counselling/Therapy - Essay Example

Reliability refers to the use of the same form of assessment on two or more separate occasions by the same group of examiners. This form of assessment is also referred to as the test-retest assessment. In most assessment occasions, the reliability approach is not practical as the repetitive nature of the experiment may affect the behaviors of the examinees. The reliability form of assessment consists of the following approaches: form equivalence, temporal stability, inter-ratter reliability, and internal consistency. The validity on the other hand is a direct value assessment. This method of assessment is more value-free and practical when compared to reliability assessment. The validity mode of theorizing is not based on tests but rather on common sense (Paul & Orchanian, 2003). It is a more persuasive mode of assessment, which makes it the right method of assessment for most readers. This form of assessment has the truth concept in it, a feature that highly distinguishes it from the reliability assessment. Validity assessment includes; content validity and true validity.

An objective test refers to an assessment technique in which the measurements are based on individuals’ abilities to remember facts (Bager-Charleson & Rijn, 2011). This test also enhances the understanding ability of the materials and procedures. A subjective test, on the other hand, is the evaluation method in which an individual’s opinion counts. This type of test is evaluated by giving opinionated results.  The subjective test has a tentative hypothesis that makes it more valid.  This method is more challenging and expensive to prepare, administer and evaluate as compared to objective tests. A projective test is basically a personality test (Hood & Johnson, 2007). This test is designed to inflict a rapid response to ambiguous stimuli thus revealing hidden emotions and internal conflicts within individuals. Projective tests are content analyzed as opposed to subjective and objective tests, which use the universal standard methods of analysis.

Using projective counseling in psychology is one of the best therapeutic methods. This counseling method ensures close contact for both the client and the counselor. Tentative observations are also easily verifiable in the projective test hence easing the counseling. Counseling is a continuous process, therefore, the families or clients being counseled should always be in close contact with the psychologist. This will ensure close monitoring of their recovery processes. Projective tests give counselors adequate time for the analysis of their patients as they are always in close contact with the subject of study who are their patients (Sanderson, 2008). This empirical formula of the test, therefore, makes it one of the best therapy tests as compared to the objective and subjective tests. Projective test in psychology has some limitations as well. The ambiguous nature of this test may give false responses to what is expected to come out of a person’s mind. Secondly, in most therapeutic cases, a person’s mind is usually unconscious, and this makes it difficult to construct the expected answers consciously. The negative attributes that are associated with projective tests significantly undermine the outcomes of the assessments using this approach in therapeutic counseling (Friedman, 2001). For a better interpretation of these ambiguous images, there should be knowledge of the person’s state of the mind before going through this therapeutic counseling test. This would minimize misunderstandings and misinterpretations, which may arise during projective tests.