ABSTRACT
Th is chapter follows a diff erent format than the earlier chapters in that it shift s from presenting the major tests through which we gather norm-based information to describing ways in which psychologists can use that data to access clients’ actual lives. Traditionally, assessment reports have been test-oriented and technical (presenting test-by-test standing on various constructs and discussing the implications in conceptual terms for other professionals). At the same time our literature has long called for client-oriented rather than test-oriented reports. Similarly, recent versions of the American Psychological Association’s Ethical Guidelines and Code of Conduct (APA, 2002) have called on psychologists to present test fi ndings in ways that the client can understand. Th ese calls have been diffi cult to answer fully because of psychology’s historically having identifi ed itself as a natural science. Fortunately, psychology has fully demonstrated its status as a science and is now freer to pursue ways to explore those aspects of being human that lend themselves neither to positivistic philosophy nor to related laboratory methods. Psychology’s recent joining with other social science and service disciplines in adopting qualitative research methods is part of our contemporary development, along with adopting the goal of understanding in those circumstances when explaining is not the most appropriate goal. Over the past 2 decades, several MMPI manuals (e.g., Finn, 1996b; Lewak, Marks, & Nelson,
1990) have included life-world ways to share fi ndings with clients. Our two Rorschach computer interpretation programs, the RIAP (Exner, Weiner, et al., 2005) and the ROR-SCAN (Caracena, 2006) include client reports that present fi ndings in everyday language and in terms of behavior and experience, as do certain reports for several other major psychological tests.
