ABSTRACT
It would be difficult to imagine any new social situation in which assessment did not occur. Its use in psychotherapy is not therefore remarkable, but it is interesting that the more experience that psychotherapists have, the more likely they are to spend time in assessment rather than in treatment. This suggests that assessment in psychotherapy is considered both to be particularly difficult, and particularly useful. In this chapter I shall consider some of these possible uses of assessment, and whether or not they are realised in practice. Wherever possible I have drawn on published evaluations, but the number of these found on a computer search was small and many of the gaps have had to be filled in with clinical impressions. Other psychotherapists, with other clinical impressions, may therefore come to rather different conclusions. The chapter will be oriented particularly, but not exclusively, to individual psychotherapy of adults.
