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Clinician’s Handbook of Adult Behavioral Assessment: Practical Resources for the Mental Health Professional

THOMAS N. WISE, M.D.

Over the past two decades, the contents of Psychosomatics have changed so that there is increasing utilization of an objective psychometric assessment.¹ Both clinicians and researchers often wish to empirically measure specific symptoms, signs, behaviors or outcomes of the questions that they pose. Handbook of Psychiatric Measures has been a useful source for such inventories.² Clinician’s Handbook of Adult Behavioral Assessment will also offer the reader both general issues in behavioral assessment and a variety of actual measures and inventories.

The book begins with a section on general factors in behavioral assessments of adults; psychometric considerations; the use of analog assessment; and behavioral and activity measurements. Discussions of structured and semi-structured interviews, as well as self-assessment and psychophysiologic measures are included.

The second part of the book reviews specific clinical problems or behaviors. Chapters on anxiety, depression, eating disorders, social-skills problems, substance abuse, marital dysfunction, sexual deviation, and psychotic behaviors are complemented by a chapter on aggressive behaviors and borderline personality disorders. The final section of the book looks at special issues such as integrating technologic and behavioral assessment, evaluating older patients, workplace issues, and the role of focused assessment in adults with acquired disabilities.

The chapters on psychometric issues are excellent and should be read and understood by all psychiatric residents, who should be reading the psychiatric literature that utilizes such assessment tools. Each of the chapters in the second part of the book, focusing on clinical categories, presents a case study, which makes the book come alive. In reviewing the chapters, I was initially disappointed that there was not a discussion of the Diagnostic Interview for Borderlines in the chapter on borderline personality disorders, but found this inventory in the chapter on structured and semi-structured interviews. I also wondered whether sexual dysfunction was included too briefly within the chapter on marital dysfunction, although a separate chapter was devoted to sexual deviation.

The book is produced in a paperback format. At $75, the book is expensive for the individual. It should be on the shelves of most medical libraries, however, for clinicians who wish to empirically describe their patients or for researchers who wish to find measures that are useful for a study population.

REFERENCES

TOP REFERENCES

 

1. Ramchandani D, Wise TN: The changing content of Psychosomatics: reflection of the growth of consultation-liaison psychiatry? Psychosomatics 2004; 45:1–6[Abstract/Free Full Text]
2. Handbook of Psychiatric Measures. Washington, DC, American Psychiatric Press, 2000

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