Olivia Psychological Evaluation
Evaluation General Information
Case Number: Olivia
Date of The Evaluation: 25/6/2021
Evaluator’s Name:
Family Demographics
Olivia, a 21-year-old student at Commonwealth University, comes from a family of three. She has one sister, Cindy, and one brother, Chris. Cindy, who is 28 years old, is Olivia’s elder sister, while Chris, who is ten, is the youngest in the family. Their mother is African American, while the father is white. The family has lived in the United States for ten years after relocating from Canada. All family members live in the same household and usually spend most of their time together, especially on weekends. Our assignment writing help is at affordable prices to students of all academic levels and academic disciplines.
Assessments Administered
Assessments that will be administered to ensure that Olivia gets the best psychological help are one couples assessment, one family assessment, a needs assessment, and a risk assessment. The one couples assessment will incorporate the Revised Dyadic Adjustment Scale. The scale includes 14 scales measuring relationship satisfaction. The main scales are dyadic consensus, which assesses the extent to which a respondent agrees with a partner; dyadic satisfaction, which evaluates the time to which respondents are satisfied with a partner; and dyadic cohesion, which assesses the time to which a partner and respondent collaborate in participating in activities (Hollist et al., 2012). The Revised Dyadic Adjustment Scale will help me understand Olivia’s relationship with her parents concerning conflict and stability regulation, consensus in decision-making, and cohesion in discussion and activities.
One family assessment will be conducted using the Self-Report Family Inventory. The instrument focuses on the evaluation of competency in a family by measuring cohesion, conflict, health or competence, emotional expressiveness, and leadership (Goodrich et al., 2012). Health or competence incorporates 19 items, including parental coalitions, family effect, autonomy and individuality, problem-solving abilities, acceptance of family members, and optimistic versus pessimistic views. Cohesion incorporates five items focusing on aspects connected to family togetherness, such as spending time together and satisfaction acquired from within the family versus outside (Goodrich et al., 2012). Conflict incorporates 12 items involving covert versus overt strife, such as arguing, fighting openly, and blaming. Emotional expressiveness contains six things relating to expressions of warmth, both nonverbal and verbal, closeness, and caring. Leadership includes three articles about parental supervision, such as degree of control and directiveness.
A needs assessment will be conducted using a variety of assessment instruments to ensure that I understand Olivia’s mental issue well and address it effectively. One of the assessment instruments that I will use is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory Scale. The scale will be effective in understanding Olivia’s mental issues because, according to Tellegen & Ben-Porath (2011), it focuses on different mental problems such as depression, paranoia, schizophrenia, and hysteria, which all have some of the symptoms exhibited by Olivia. The instrument will also be effective because it can detect defensiveness, inconsistent responses, and lying, thus ensuring that the patient provides true information to receive the right mental help. The scale also has many extra content scales assessing specific behaviors, cognitions, motivations, and physical experiences such as competitive drive, gastrointestinal issues, and self-doubt. Another assessment instrument that will be used is the Brief Dissociative Experiences Scale. The instrument incorporates eight items assessing a client’s frequency of experiencing certain dissociative symptoms over seven days.
A risk assessment will focus on identifying specific warning signs and a possible safety plan that can be used to help Olivia. The risk factors will be determined based on the responses provided by Olivia in the other assessments. The opinion of her parents and Olivia’s past experiences will also be considered during risk assessment. Olivia will be actively involved in deciding on the best safety plan to minimize resistance and enhance the effectiveness of the medical interventions.
Purpose for Referral
The family came to therapy because Olivia speaks rapidly, and some of her ideas do not hold together. She is also obsessed with studying states of mental consciousness and wants to visit a spa that she believes will help her express her ideas. She also wants to meet the president to present her thoughts because she believes that her thoughts need to be listened to. She has also refused medical attention and insists that she is not sick. She feels that the only person who seems to be listening to her is her lawyer, who is currently helping her avoid being sent to a mental health institution. She has also been refusing to take her pills because she has not yet accepted the fact that she may be having mental issues that require treatment with medication.
Background Information
Olivia’s family is a middle-class family living in the United States. The family initially lived in Canada before moving to the United States ten years ago. Olivia’s mother and father have been living together for twenty years. The family has maintained close family ties over the years. They have been together and are also living together in the house bought by the parents when they moved to the United States. The family values education, and Cindy, Olivia’s elder sister, graduated from Commonwealth University. The younger brother, Chris, who is ten years old, is enrolled in a school close to their house. The family has no history of mental health issues and has not experienced any form of violence or defiance from the family members.
Results of Evaluations
Olivia’s score on the Revised Dyadic Adjustment Scale was eight. The score was zero on making major decisions, demonstrating affection, how often they get on each other’s nerves, and conventionality. On career decisions, the score was five. On sexual relations, the score was 2, while on religious matters, the score was one. Olivia stated that she disagrees with her parents on demonstrating affection, conventionality, and making major decisions. Olivia stated that her parents do not allow her to contribute to making her major decisions because they already assume that she is sick. She added that even when they listen to her, they ignore her decision. She mentioned that at one point, she agreed to get in the car and go to the emergency room because her parents promised her she would go to the spa and Washington DC, but that never happened. She also added her parents demonstrate too much affection to her siblings. She stated that her elder sister is allowed to do whatever she wants, including coming home late, but the same does not apply to her because she must be home before 8 p.m. She also mentioned that her sister is given too much freedom to walk around the neighborhood, while in her case, her parents always come to pick her up whenever she goes walking in the park alone. On conventionality, she mentioned that she feels that her parents consider her passion for studying and expressing her ideas of different states of mind to other people as improper behavior, which is why they insist that she has a mental illness so that she can stop expressing what she thinks and feels. Olivia also stated that she often quarrels with her parents, especially when she goes out alone, and that her parents get on her nerves most of the time, forcing her to talk back and consider running away from home.
On family assessment, the score was ten. The score was three on consensus and satisfaction, while on cohesion, the score was four. Olivia stated that she is not satisfied with her parent’s decision-making because it is self-centered and does not respect her values. She also said that her parents make decisions that do not demonstrate affection towards her, making her feel neglected. Olivia also expressed concerns about her parent’s conflict resolution strategy, arguing that they involve external parties too much, and she thinks that this contributes to ruining her reputation. She was, however, slightly impressed by how her parents embrace her in family activities and discussions even though in discussions relating to her, she is given less room to express herself. On need assessment, the results indicated that Olivia is suffering from hysteria, though it is still in the initial stages and could be eliminated if immediate mental healthcare is provided. The need assessment also showed that Olivia has already mastered lying, manipulation, and defensiveness, which is why it is hard to get her the help she needs. The need assessment also showed that Olivia has high levels of dissociation.
The risk assessment indicated that Olivia is at risk of falling into depression because she feels like the whole world is judging her as a sick person, and no one understands her. Olivia could also fall into depression because she feels that her parents are not showing her the same level of affection as they are showing to her siblings. After all, they believe that she is sick. Her hysteria could also increase, especially if she finds someone embracing her ideas because she has already registered in her, and everyone around her does not understand her concepts, and those who do not appreciate them. Olivia could also develop suicidal thoughts. The main warning signs are the lack of concern about her welfare to the extent of ending up with a black eye and torn clothes at the roadside. She could also run away from home and hide from her parents because she feels unloved and does not like his parent’s argument that she is sick. It is, therefore, important to monitor any changes in Olivia’s behavior, no matter how small they could be, because they could help in predicting the advancement of her mental issues. It is also important to create a friendly environment for Olivia to allow her to speak up and cooperate to improve her mental health because she has already exhibited an interest in speaking up to people who show her care and concern, as seen in her relationship with her lawyer.
Summary/Recommendations
Based on the battery of tests conducted during Olivia’s assessment, it is evident to me that Olivia comes from a very loving family. Her parents are willing to do anything to ensure that she gets the right kind of mental health and that she does not end up in a place she would not want to be. They have put their daughter’s emotional well-being as a priority and are only willing to send her to a mental healthcare institution if she is willing to do so. Olivia’s siblings also love her and have been working hard to create a friendly and homely environment for her by helping the parents organize family activities that bring them together. Moving forward, it is important to apply a theoretical approach to address Olivia’s disorder.
The best theoretical approach that would suit to address her needs is the humanistic approach. According to Short & Thomas (2014), the argument considered in this approach is that the main cause of an abnormality is when people cannot be their authentic selves. The system further states that people can only be genuine when their social and physical needs are met first (Short & Thomas, 2014). In Olivia’s case, her mental issues are occurring because she wants to impress her professor and prove to her parents and those being sent to offer her help that she is not sick. To begin with, Olivia has always been a great student at Commonwealth University, and she may be feeling that she needs to show more and express her ideas in the school so that she can maintain a good reputation. This may be forcing her to stop being her authentic self and start focusing on complicated concepts that have not been fully explored by other people in the school so that she can gain recognition. The second argument is that Olivia needs to stop being her authentic self to convince her parents that she is not sick because she needs them to support her research to express ideas. The third argument is that Olivia may be hiding her authentic self to avoid being taken to a mental health institution and be given the freedom to express her ideas whenever and however she wants. Olivia, therefore, needs to be introduced to an individual who has recovered from the same mental issue she is having so that she can get the right advice and guidance to overcome the problem. Such individuals can be assessed via referrals from Olivia’s professor since he already has connections in the psychological field.
References
Goodrich, K. M., Selig, J. P., & Traha, D. (2012). The Self-Report Family Inventory: An Exploratory Factor Analysis. n Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development.
Hollist, C. S., Falceto, O. G., Ferreira, L. M., Miller, R. B., Springer, P. R., Fernandes, C. L., & Nunes, N. A. (2012). Revised dyadic adjustment scale—Portuguese version. PsycTESTS Dataset. https://doi.org/10.1037/t40234-000
Short, F., & Thomas, P. (2014). Core approaches in counseling and psychotherapy. Routledge.
Tellegen, A., & Ben-Porath, Y. S. (2011). MMPI-2-RF: Minnesota Multiphasic personality inventory-2 restructured form: Technical manual.
ORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE
We’ll write everything from scratch
Question 
Introduction:
For this final assignment, you will start by watching the full 57-minute video Minds on the Edge: Facing Mental Illness, hyperlinked here and in the Books and Resources section for the course and this week. It can also be found in the Northcentral University library, Films on Demand database.
Olivia Psychological Evaluation
The film presents several different cases. For this final activity, you will assume that one of the cases discussed in the video has been referred to your clinical practice. Your supervisor has instructed you to complete a battery of assessments for this case that you select and present her with a clinical write-up at your next supervision session. You decide to conduct:
- One couple’s assessments (ex: RDAS)
- One family assessment (SFI)
- Needs Assessment
- Risk assessment
For the couples and family assessments, you may use the evaluations presented earlier in this course or select a set of different instruments. If you choose to use another team and family assessment, you must request approval from your instructor before proceeding. Depending on which case you select to use from the video, you will need to be creative and fill in the “rest of the story.” Similar to how presenters in the film were asked to role-play different family member roles, when asked by the discussion facilitator, you will need to place yourself in the position of each family member. Feel free to use some creative license to fill in the rest of the story and characters (i.e., wife, children, parents, etc.) if they were not specifically discussed in the film.
While addressing the risk assessment, you are not required to present a formal evaluation but to outline specific warning signs and a possible safety plan (including particular resources and advised actions) that you will be developing with your client(s).
The goal of this assignment is not to correctly guess how the family members might respond to the assessments but to accurately and appropriately understand what picture is painted by the scores and information gathered during your evaluation. You will be graded on your ability to discuss which reviews you chose and why intelligently, what you learned about the family from these assessments, and how this information might help work with this family in therapy.
At a minimum, your clinical write-up of this case should have these sections:
| Sections | Explanations | % of Total Grade |
| Evaluation General Information | Case Number; Date of the evaluation; Evaluator’s name | 5% |
| Family Demographics | Family member names, ages, ethnicity, gender, etc. | 5% |
| Assessments Administered | List out each instrument used and provide a detailed description of what type of instrument it is, what construct(s) it measures, and any other relevant information for that instrument. | 25% |
| Purpose for Referral | Briefly report why the family came to therapy. | 5% |
| Background Information | Provide historical background information on the family. | 10% |
| Results of Evaluations | Review the results from each assessment indicating t, he scores, and the subscale scores. | 20% |
| Summary/Recommendations | Discuss in detail what this battery of tests has taught you about the family and what clinical recommendations you might provide. Also, provide your thoughts about the best theoretical approach to address this client’s needs (please choose one method from Traditional or Postmodern models previously discussed in the MFT 5104 and MFT 5105 courses). Please provide at least three specific arguments that support your recommendation. In addition, conduct a brief needs assessment with recommended community resources for the family. | 30% |
Click on the links below for examples and guidelines on how to write an evaluation. Your clinical write-up will be slightly different because it will address the entire family system, not just one individual.
Psychological Evaluation Format
Example of the Assessments Administered (Test Description) and Results of Evaluations (Interpretation of Assessment Results) sections (found in the Week 12 resources section).
For this evaluation, assume that you are a student therapist reporting to your licensed supervisor; therefore, your clinical recommendations are not the focus of this activity. The focus is to demonstrate your understanding of which assessments you administered and what the results tell you about the family. Please note that this is your signature assignment for the course, which accounts for 20% of your total course grade. This final assignment is designed to allow you to demonstrate your understanding and application of all the information covered in this course.