How to Make Your Initial Therapy Assessment More Conversational

Recent graduate building his caseload here, been struggling with this side of it. This was very helpful! Thanks for posting :D

I can’t believe how many people just make people fill out these questions online and type in paragraphs of answers instead of having a conversation directly with a client. I take about 2 sessions to do an intake and let the client take the wheel of what they want to tell me about as I complete a bio psycho social And if they miss areas I’ll go back or ask more. I get so much insight by doing this! Thanks for your video!

I’m a therapist working with the active duty Army soldiers in substance use clinical care. They seem to respond well to a relaxed conversation rather than a rigid check the block assessment. This was my style I developed early on in my masters program. I really liked how the Vineland approached gathering info so I created a “flow sheet” to help me gather all the check the block info. During doctoral program I found that clients, especially children, would check out when going through standardized assessments, question and answer type intake. So I went back to my conversation style and that helped me see how they will do during therapy as well with rapport and self disclosure. To me it also seems more efficient in gathering info. Thanks for video!!!

Thanks for posting this. Sometimes, when I'm all about that checklist and getting all of the info, my intake note and treatment plan might look amazing to the insurance company, but I know I didn't spend nearly enough time asking them about their dog or that cool band shirt they're wearing or just basically connecting in ways that aren't going to translate into the paperwork.

This is exactly how I do it! 😊

This is very helpful. Thank you for posting.

i love these videos! Definietly helping with my imposter syndrome. Can you do any videos over just regular sessions, like after the intake and treatment planning. I am finding that I am a little lost when it comes to just regular sessions and how to structure them. Should we just talk? Should we be doing activities? idk

This was super helpful as someone new to private practice! Thank you!!!

I like this! I like to think I do a mix of both. BTW I love your hair like that, Marie!

This was very interesting. Building that initial relationship with the client is really helpful. With skill/practice, the therapist should slowly really be able to converse, listen out for the information and fill in these questionnaires/screeners/measures/tools without it being mechanical. So consciously practice, practice, practice and the therapist will get it. Thanks for sharing this video. And.......by the way..............your acting was quite good!!!😃

Can you please tell me how do client check-in to the waiting room before going to the office without having any fancy technology ? Because I don't have access to that where I live and I want to know how do therapist work by themselves ?

In community mental health we have a lot of questions that are not conversational. Like how much they weigh and their dogs email address. Is there a smooth way of getting through all of these? What if you do just need to ask 15 direct questions because there's no smooth quick way of getting through all of them?