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Restoration Beyond the Couch
The Beyond the Couch with Dr. Lee Long podcast is intended solely for general informational purposes and does not represent the practice of medicine, therapeutic and psychiatric services, nursing, or other professional health care services. It also does not constitute the provision of medical, therapeutic or psychiatric advice, and no doctor/patient relationship is established. The information on this podcast and any materials linked from it are used at the user's own risk. The content provided through this podcast should not be considered a replacement for professional medical, therapeutic, or psychiatric advice, diagnosis, or treatment. It is important that users do not ignore or postpone seeking medical, therapeutic, or psychiatric advice for any health or mental health condition they might have, and should always consult with their health care professionals regarding such conditions.
Restoration Beyond the Couch
Assessments: The Roadmap To Effective Healing
Unlock the mysteries of your mind with expert guidance! Join us as Dr. Geoff Weckel and Dr. Lee Long reveal the transformative power of psychological assessments in therapy. Imagine fine-tuning your car, but instead, it's your thoughts and behaviors that get the expert touch. We trek through the intricate landscape of personality and cognitive evaluations, such as the MMPI, to unearth the 'why' behind the 'what' in mental health. This episode guarantees insights into how these tools not only manage symptoms but strive for profound healing by addressing the core issues at hand.
Stepping into a more expansive view, we navigate the holistic terrains at Restoration where the interplay of diet, sleep, and physical health with mental well-being takes center stage. Serotonin's journey from our gut to our brain illustrates the profound effects of nutrition on conditions like ADHD, while the rejuvenating role of sleep calls for a closer look at our nightly rituals. With Dr. Weckel and Dr. Long, we recognize the person beyond the diagnosis, leveraging unique strengths for optimal interventions. Stay on the pulse of mental health advancements with us as we explore cutting-edge methodologies that are reshaping our approach to psychological care.
Episode 5 of Restoration Beyond the Couch, presented by Restoration Counselor, features Jeff Weckl, an expert in psychological assessments, alongside Dr Li Long. They will explore the pivotal role these assessments play in mental health care. Learn how they help tailor therapeutic approaches to individual needs, providing a foundation for effective treatment. Dive into the science and significance of psychological evaluations with us. Your path to mental wellness starts here.
Speaker 2:So we're talking about assessments today and, for those who are unfamiliar with what psychological assessments are in what they typically involve, do you mind giving us a brief overview of what a typical psych assessment involves?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think to look at it from a 30,000 foot elevation, a psychological assessment is basically you're wanting to answer the question why is something happening? What are the factors that are doing it? And so a good clinician is going to go and have a good background information. They're going to ask a lot of questions about the Brazilian issue that brings them in and then, based on that information, they're going to identify measurements that allow them to target what the referral behavior is.
Speaker 2:So when you say identify measurements, you're saying that a good clinician is going to sit down with a patient coming in looking for, basically, a look under the hood. They're going to listen to the engine and say, ah, it's the carburetor, we need to look a little closer to that. The engine and say, ah, it's the carburetor, we need to look a little closer to that. Or that sounds like it might be the. And we've gotten to my limit of what I know about cars here.
Speaker 2:It's the muffler, it's the, it's the pistons, it's the something, and that's where they're going to measure the test, the measure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's when we're going to find the measurement that actually looks at how the carburetor is running, measurement that actually looks at how the carburetor is running. And so there's so many different measurements out there, and that's why you want to go to someone who has experience with these measurements is because they know all the measurements and the intricacies of them, and they could include a personality measurement, they could include a cognitive measurement and typically you don't want to just look at it from one angle. When you have a thorough assessment, you're going to have multiple measurements so that you're not just defining the tail end of the car. You want to look at every inch of the engine because something may be affecting the carburetor and it may not be just the carburetor that you want to see a little bit more details of what could be influencing the carburetor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that makes good sense. So this is really it's. It's it's a hard science of looking at the personality, but it's also there's a soft art to it of knowing what. Listening for what is it that? What is the presenting problem? I like to call it? What's the closest alligator to the boat? And looking at it from that perspective, that informs how you begin a psychological assessment.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because as you start, as the psychologist begins to look at the measurements, it says oh, here's an alligator. Well, here's an alligator, and a good assessment is going to trace back to the den, to where it all began. So that you know, using a car illustration, my son's restoring a 67 Camaro and one of the things that we're having a problem is that the timing was off. So we began looking at the carburetor and does it need to be altered that way? But that seemed to be working fine. And then we started looking at the battery and was the battery holding a charge? And then we're looking at it wasn't actually creating enough electrical jump to get the timing correct.
Speaker 3:And once we chased, as you said, the alligator all the way back to the, the, the problem, the existing, then we began to address that and then all these other alligators, to use your metaphor, began to disappear because we got to the heart of it, and that's 30 000. We want to see what's creating the problem, so that that informs treatment, so that you can actually begin to address the, the root of the issue. Yeah, and, and not just try to band-aid or limp across life.
Speaker 2:Right, right, it's get to that core issue, which that's one of the questions that I wanted to ask you is what are the different types of assessments available that you've somewhat covered that. I'd love to hear more about that, and how are they commonly used in the clinical setting, which is kind of what you're setting us up for here.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So with an assessment at first, there's the real soft aspect and that we call it the clinical interview, and sometimes these are really structured. Some clinicians use a semi-structured approach, but this is just basically getting to know the background to the information of the individual and the presenting problem. Another measurement that's a little bit more concrete, more research and better understood and the validity, reliability of these measurements that I'm about to talk about, may include personality. So one of the ones that is widely recognized as the gold standard for psychological measurements is the MMPI. It's gone through several editions of it. They're in the third edition, there's the PAI, there's the Milan.
Speaker 3:All these look at the intricacies of one's personality, which is different than sometimes you might have heard of the 16PF or the Taylor Johnson or the Myers-Briggs, some of the what's the popular one now with the Enneagram? Yeah, those don't have the breadth of scientific research that the ones that I mentioned formerly. So those personality measurements begin to look at why does the person think and feel, the way that they go about life and influencing, because we refer to that personality measurement. It looks at the process of the mind.
Speaker 3:The other aspect of assessments that we're also looking at are the brain, the cognitive ability and what we look at are things like the intelligence test, the Weschler's or achievement test, and, especially, if you're thinking, learning disorders, achievement tests see where they compare to the standard population as far as academics, are they having a specific learning disorder like mathematics? So by using those IQ tests with the achievement tests, then we begin to take into consideration is there a learning difference for the individual and there are special schools that can help out and give direction in helping out in that area. Other cognitive assessments are looking at neurological function, such as processing speed, memory capabilities, and those measurements can be used for multiple reasons. A lot of psychologists will use those for stroke victims to see if they're improving in some of their symptoms, or head injuries, tbis, things of that nature. So with all those put together there's many different ways that we can evaluate to see how the brain's influencing personality or daily function, how daily functioning's impacting the brain.
Speaker 2:So getting in the weeds here. But no, I love this because what I think about when you are describing all of this is there was a person that was being treated clinically and he had had a TBI or a traumatic brain injury, and he didn't think about it as a traumatic brain injury because he didn't think about the fact that it had had an impact on him. But it made it difficult for him to learn and to process and to do specific functions, and we both know that therapy is a lot. Therapy involves a lot of learning. It's just not. It's not just externalizing your thoughts. There's a lot of learning. That a lot of learning. It's just not. It's not just externalizing your thoughts. There's a lot of learning that's associated with that.
Speaker 2:And this poor guy kept going through different therapists after different therapists because he quote unquote wasn't getting any better and he would get frustrated with the process. Finally, his therapist was wise enough to see that wait, you struggled to fill out the intake form. So what is your cognitive processing like? If you're struggling with simple instructions, it's not because there's something wrong with your character or you're a bad apple. His therapist sat with him and said wait a second, let's process through this. He did some formal assessment and they realized he had a traumatic brain injury that was impacting so many different things that in the clinical setting, he had no chance of learning anything. Yeah, so all this therapy and I'm air quoting this for those of you who can't see me is that all this therapy that he was trying to utilize was was out of his reach? Yeah, it was like Teflon, that's right, just slipping, slipping right off of him of his reach. It was like Teflon, that's right, just slipping, slipping right off of him. Not and again, not because he was a bad guy or something was, you know, fundamentally flawed in him. He needed to. He needed the help to overcome that, so that he could learn. And when he got that help, life started to be different for him. Yeah, the gears started.
Speaker 3:That's it. Yeah, the timing. Yeah, getting back to the engine. Illustrator, I love it, you know, and how freeing, you know. A lot of times when I'm giving the feedback to the assessment, and people are you mean, I'm not crazy, you know this, this aspect. It reminds me I don't know if you've seen that movie with Kevin Hart, night School. I don't see a lot of movies, but I'm a sucker for Kevin Hart, I guess. But he illustrates a learning disorder and when he's finding out the results of his learning disorder, he was like you mean, I have a process, what do you mean? I have a processing disorder. Well, you got to talk to me like I know what, and then it registered oh, I'm not processing. And then you see the relief in his character as he's acting and portraying, and I think that's often the case when you say, oh, this is the issue. Now I know I'm not crazy, there is a real reason. Now how do we go about addressing it?
Speaker 2:And in that way these assessments really have the opportunity to guide the therapeutic process 100%, 100%.
Speaker 3:I think a lot of times, when we're going through the therapeutic and we don't have the insight, we're we're like hunting for something when the lights are turned off and we're we're reaching in without glasses or you know, whatever illustration you want to use here, right, but, and it's like we turn on the spotlight to okay, this is what we got to address, let's go. Let's go address it. And it may not necessarily mean that all of a sudden your processing gets better, but you develop the coping skills or the person that is sitting across from you, such that the effectiveness of what you're trying to utilize to treat is just far more effective. And this is not only true in the therapeutic room, but I see this in the academic setting. I see this with parents going this is why my child is having difficulty and then they learn a different technique that's more conducive to what the child needs, whether it be in academics or in the home Right, and, in essence, you're giving them the ability to see their kid Accurately Right.
Speaker 2:Wow, thinking about how we do assessment here at Restoration. Thinking about how we do assessment here at Restoration is there a unique or distinctive way that assessments are conducted here?
Speaker 3:I think what makes us unique is that we're very intentional. Now there's other clinicians that are intentional and great clinicians out there, and I don't want to come across as pompous that we've got it, but I think what we're our to to really know the individual. I tell people that if I don't have a good understanding then my interpretation of the measurements might be off, and if that's off then then the treatment recommendations are going. So the clinical interview I often tell people it's it's important for me to get the information because in that time it's like the lenses and I'm able to use the lens of the clinical interpretation to interpret the data accurately.
Speaker 3:So at Restoration, we want to look at the holistic aspects of a person, because it's not just the brain, it's not just the mind, it's not just the relationship, it's the community, the relationships that you have, and we want it to have a comprehensive and maybe even take into consideration what's your diet like?
Speaker 3:Right, because what we're discovering is that a majority of our serotonin, the neurotransmitter that's in charge of happiness and being alert and mood, sleep, all these type of 80% of it, at least 80 percent has been found to be produced in this gut, and so if you're eating this high refined food ulcer process, yeah, then you're messing with your second brain, is what we're now calling it and and so we want to take into consideration. Do we need to look at improved sleep pattern, improve eating patterns, things of that nature? Research is showing you if we assess someone to have ADHD and they're eating their carbs, sugars and all that for breakfast the Pop-Tart well, that's not a good diet to start out with ADHD, because what we found is that eating a breakfast full of protein actually gets blood flow to the frontal lobe so that a student is more out to be present when learning at school to help the ADHD symptoms.
Speaker 2:Right, and you mentioned sleep, and I think you know I've done a deep dive recently on the whole concept of sleep and the effect on the brain and what it does for gosh, how it regulates really everything. Right, and if you have somebody who shows up to school who hasn't slept well and hasn't slept well for days, what in the world are you going to get? A ticking bomb, exactly, exactly. Or a lethargic, that's right, but you're certainly not going to have a kid who's going to be able to learn. They're going to struggle, and then our struggle and I think that this is something that you're pointing out is that our struggle, then, is to not pathologize. That Right.
Speaker 2:And what do I mean by pathologize? I mean not make that something wrong with them. Instead, this is just a youngster or an oldster, wherever we are in life, if we're not sleeping well, that is a critical impact, just like just like you're talking about with the diet, and so it is really holistic and I love that's. One of the things I love about the way that we approach things here is it's really the attempt to look at some at the whole person Right, not just the carburetor Right.
Speaker 3:And to second that, maybe another thing that I would add to the unionist and we're not unique in the sense that but a good psychologist isn't going to look at a person as a diagnosis, and that's one of the first things I want to make sure people know, as I'm giving them the feedback is that there may be a diagnosis with this, but you are never, ever, ever defined by a diagnosis.
Speaker 3:I hope you'll say that again by a diagnosis. I hope you'll say that again Identity is much more. Our capabilities as psychologists to measure and accurately define somebody cannot be captured in a diagnosis Right Now. We can identify problems, and that's what a diagnosis is is to look at something that's problematic, right, but there's a lot of people who have problems that find ways to overcome them and do great things.
Speaker 2:That's just exactly like you and your son fixing the timing on this amazing car, this rebuild. You fixing the timing on this does not define this car, as though its timing is always off. So let's just discard a 6.7.
Speaker 3:Camaro, right? No, we've got to look at it for the beauty that it is. That's right and that's how we want to see people.
Speaker 2:That's right. That's right, okay. So here's my next question for you is how do you stay updated on the latest um developments or best practices in this psychological assessments? What's your, what's your practice in staying updated on that?
Speaker 3:good stuff staying in touch with the measurement, the people who produce the measurements, uh, and reading up on that uh, staying uh alert to uh, the the latest findings? Um, also, I want to find new ways to assess uh. You know, recently we brought into our, our practice, a uh, a tool that actually uses tone of voice to measure the amount of stress a person has. We've also experimented with looking at how HRV can begin to show coherence within the body and how the body's responding to stress and how we can improve the stress level of the body. And so looking once again holistic, how do we assess the whole body? You know? So there's a lot of research going now into DNA up in it. Oh, help me with epidemiology. Thank you very much, Tongue twister for me. Um, so just constantly staying on the, on the cutting edge of what, what is being published and researched and best evidence practice.
Speaker 2:Yeah and boy, it seems like our field is really exploring all of that much more heartily lately.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and to go along with that, you know, as a psychologist and even psychiatry, a lot of our practice. We don't spend the time to take measurements Right, whereas you go to a bone specialist they're going to measure bone density, they're going to take your x-rays, they're going to get measurements to diagnose and treat the problem.
Speaker 2:I was always struck by Daniel Amen. I heard him say that many, many years ago. He said psychiatry is the only practice of medicine that does not measure in some capacity the organ in which we're treating Right. I was blown away when I thought about that. It's baffling. Yeah, yeah, okay. So let me ask you this yes, um, do you believe, are there any self-assessment tools or practices that individuals that people listening could use at home to better understand their mental health at home?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I mean, if you do a search on the Internet, you're just going to find a plethora, and these are good things to study and to research and to experiment with. They don't have the validity and the reliability that's the measurements that we use as psychologists in this field, but it's always good to explore and examine yourself in many different facets. So I'm not keeping up to date with those things on the internet. But yeah, there's lots of different options out there to uh, and I strongly encourage that people uh to know thyself right, and the more that you know about thyself, the the more that you can respond effectively, uh, or you increase the chances of responding effectively, right?
Speaker 2:any thoughts about? About somebody using a tool that they find that as far as interpreting it would be? Do you have any thoughts for someone?
Speaker 3:Yeah, interpretation is such a complex thing, the variabilities that are at play there's. A lot of times people will go to Dr Google and come up with a conclusion that may be far out of line, and so if you're really concerned and you're finding yourself hitting the same wall over and over, I would highly encourage you to get a professional, someone who's well qualified, to interpret the results so that it gives you a better understanding that there is a lot of danger with trying to psychologize yourself, because I mean, what got us there is the same line of thinking that we tend to use with Dr Google, and we can always find biases or confirm our fears. We can go through this life. There's tons of evidence of my fears out there.
Speaker 2:Yes, and you mentioned earlier, part of the piece of what you bring into an assessment is looking at even the community, right, and I think about when I think about the idea of doing self-assessment and those again you can't see Matt Mayer quoting is that? Do we do this in the context of a trusted, safe now again, I'm going to repeat that a trusted and safe community Right, because part of assessment is getting external feedback. I mean fair and so having that external, that, having that community, and maybe something that we can encourage our listeners in is the idea of, yes, be very self-aware and have a very safe and trusted community with which you test that feedback.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, you, you uh elude to the idea of relationship, and to have a relationship, that's always, uh, an assessment, because are are you able to reciprocate in that relationship and that reciprocation is so vitally important. Because to go to a trusted friend and say, hey, did I miss this? There's vulnerability in that. But in that vulnerability when you're with safe people, there's opportunities to learn. That's right. And so to have that community, I think would be very important. But that's not necessarily an assessment aspect. Right, if we're looking at the formal matter of facts, you know it's in those communities that people live. They're probably not needing assessment because they're being seen accurately and the reciprocation is provided. So I would say that if you find yourself having a pattern of difficulty and the community isn't seen to understand, go get a second opinion.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a really great litmus test is that if something is more complex, then it probably is time to get a professional look. Right, is time to get a professional look. It's just like when I'm hearing something off in my car or my truck that I know, okay, I need to check these little things that I know to check, but then once that's beyond my ability to YouTube or Google, then I need to go get a second opinion and I may need to take that to a mechanic and not to try to make it that simplistic and not to try to make it that simplistic, but I think it really kind of could be that simple of. It might be time to go get an evaluation if there's a limp that we have or something that we have that keeps showing up over and over again that it's time to. We don't quite know what to do with this.
Speaker 3:This is a little bit of a head scratcher. Yeah, in practice, what I've heard many times is a mom gives me a call and inquires about needing to get an assessment and I said, well, tell me more about it. Well, me and the teacher have been talking and the teacher doesn't know if it's ADHD or anxiety, and the teacher has been working and the student is still struggling to grasp concepts. Then it's time to go get a second opinion from a professional and let's get the measurements. Let's look at this from an objective outsider, because sometimes the community it can be a head scratcher and that's why we have these services.
Speaker 2:That's right. Well, Jeff, thanks for being with us today and thanks for helping take some of the mystery away of what these psychological assessments are. It's been fun.
Speaker 4:You bet I appreciate being here. If you found value in our discussion and wish to uncover more about the fascinating world of mental wellness, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast. Stay tuned for our upcoming episodes, where Dr Long will continue to delve into empowering therapies and strategies for mental wellness. Your journey to understanding and embracing mental health is just beginning and we're excited to have you with us every step of the way. Until next time, keep exploring, keep growing and remember to celebrate restored freedom as you uncover it.
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