Psychological assessment is useful when you want to explore patterns of thoughts, feelings and behaviours across your life and understand how these may be impacting on your functioning. This may include enquiries regarding mental health, neurodiversity (e.g. autism, ADHD), and learning needs. Assessment can be useful to understand difficulties you may be experiencing and identify what supports may help.
For children, adolescents and their families - During an assessment, we will work closely with both the child/adolescent and their family so that we can gain a complete picture of the child/adolescent’s environment and experiences. This process can help identify a child’s needs and ways that families can better support their child’s wellbeing, growth and development.
We provide a range of specialised assessments, please see the drop down menus below
Initial Psychological Assessment
This is a 1.5-2-hour interview session covering your background and present concerns with the view to developing an understanding of what might be happening and possible treatment options. All our assessments are broad, we use a number of different tools and cover a range of topics about mental health and development in order to make sure we get a holistic view of you as a person, and do not miss any important issues.
For children, adolescents and their families, sessions are typically a combination of speaking with both the child/adolescent and their parents/caregivers alone and together.
Comprehensive Psychological Assessment
This assessment is for complex or co-occurring presenting problems. It will be wide ranging and will cover many aspects of your life and mental health to arrive at a psychological understanding of your experiences and develop recommendations for care and treatment. The information will be gathered over several appointments. With consent, information will be sought from multiple informants, which could include school teachers, family members and close friends as appropriate to the area being explored.
You will also be required to complete psychometric questionnaires and in some instances may be required to complete neuropsychological testing (neuropsychological tests explore cognitive abilities such as verbal skills, problem solving abilities and memory for example).
The Psychology Centre is pleased to provide cognitive assessments for children, adolescents and adults using a range of empirically validated neuropsychological tests.
Neuropsychological testing can clarify how brain functioning might be contributing to difficulties such as memory loss, learning difficulties, and other impairment at home, school or work. Understanding whether the problem is due to disability or injury may improve access to ongoing care/support through government agencies.
Differences in brain functioning may be a result of developmental differences, acquired injury/illness or degenerative conditions. These may include:
- Intellectual disability
- Developmental disorders
- Specific learning disorders
- Traumatic brain injury
- Recovery from stroke or other illness
- Cognitive decline and dementias
These assessments require more than one session and involve gathering of information from friends/family, caregivers and teachers and therefore come under the heading of ‘Comprehensive’ assessment.
The Psychology Centre undertakes informed consent consultations with transgender people aged under 20 years old who are seeking access to gender affirming care. The centre also provides psychological support service to transgender people and works with the Speech and Language department to provide psychological support to clients accessing their service for voice modulation assistance.
The psychologist will ask you about your goals and expectations from gender affirming treatment, discuss the irreversible and reversible effects of hormone therapy, and discuss reproductive options. The psychologist does not assess gender, as this is self-determined by you.
You will also be asked about your background and current circumstances, and given a space to explore the consequences of hormone therapy from a psychosocial perspective. This includes assessment of any mental health concerns or challenges, to minimise any negative impact on the outcome of hormone therapy. In exceptional circumstances, if there is concern regarding your capacity to give consent, or if gender incongruence is not your main presenting issue, then alternative options will be discussed on a case-by-case basis.
These consultations are publicly funded. Please see your GP for a referral to access this funding.
The Psychology Centre has found that the community need for neurodiversity assessments outmatches our current trainee clinic capacity. To address the needs of our community the Psychology Centre has expanded to offer neurodiversity assessments with contracted private clinical psychologists who come in to share our space and resources. Self-referrals and referrals from health professionals are welcomed.
The Psychology Centre is part of the Clinical Psychology Training Programme for the University of Canterbury. The Private Clinic works in the same space as students, but does not have student involvement unless prearranged and agreed on between the client and the clinician.
The assessment will be wide ranging, and cover many aspects of your life and mental health. You will also be required to complete psychometric questionnaires.
A diagnosis of ADHD needs to be robustly evidence-based for a public mental health service psychiatrist to approve the prescription of stimulant medication. The assessment of ADHD requires evidence that you had ‘several’ symptoms of ADHD in childhood and early adolescence for diagnosis. Please consider who might be best placed to provide this information. It could be a family member, partner, or close friend/associate. This person may also be suited to provide evidence of your current functioning, or we can talk to someone else who knows you well now. If childhood evidence does not exist or is unable to be obtained then coming to see a psychologist is not the right assessment option. You will likely need to find a psychiatrist who places less emphasis on collecting childhood evidence.
The assessment of Autism also requires evidence from childhood, and we will likely ask to interview someone who knew you well as a child, as well as someone who knows you well now.
An assessment that includes both autism and potential co-occurring ADHD, sometimes known as 'AuDHD', involves a more complex evaluation. The additional work of incorporating a secondary evaluation into the assessment usually requires an additional session, questionnaires and report writing time, which increases the overall cost.
The process regarding accessing stimulant medication treatment for ADHD:
- A report which supports the diagnosis of ADHD will need to go to your GP who will consider treatment options and can make a referral for stimulant treatment.
- A psychiatrist at the public mental health team will review the report and will decide to either approve or decline the prescription based on the strength of information in the report.
- The client does not have to wait for an appointment with mental health, they will only have to see their GP to manage the medication once approved by the Psychiatrist.
- A drug test is often requested.
The clinic cannot guarantee that the mental health team will authorise the prescription of stimulant medication.
Please note:
If you have current difficulties with serious mental health conditions or trauma, please seek support and treatment for these issues BEFORE considering an assessment of ADHD or autism.
ADHD is a lifelong condition that requires management and cannot be "cured". It is only able to be diagnosed if the symptoms cannot be better explained by another condition. Treating and seeking support for treatable conditions first means that you can heal or treat the condition, and feel better sooner, and if you still believe you are experiencing symptoms of ADHD, it will make an ADHD assessment much clearer. Sometimes a diagnosis cannot be made in the presence of another active mental or physical health condition. This can be very frustrating, especially if you have been waiting a long time for an ADHD assessment or have paid for one privately. If you are going through a period of unusually high stress, grief, trauma, or adjustment it also may not be a good time for an assessment. It’s okay to delay.
We are not able to accept referrals for clients who pose an acute and serious risk to themselves or others, or whose primary needs would be better met through mental health services. We are also not able to undertake work related to court or legal matters. We do not provide crisis or emergency support. Please contact the Centre if you would like to confirm suitability.
Please fill out the self-referral form and return to psychclinic@canterbury.ac.nz if you would like to be triaged for a private assessment.
