ABSTRACT
Any form of therapy involves some type of assessment: the collection of information that is relevant to the process of deciding what happens next. At a first meeting with a therapist, a client wants to be helped. Because they are seeking help, a client will usually talk a lot about their problems and distress, and say little about positive aspects of their life. Apart from simply being able to make sense of what the client is talking about, information about everyday contexts feeds into therapy by making it possible jointly to consider how therapy fits into everyday routines. Within the therapeutic assessment approach, the therapist or assessor uses standard instruments or activities, such as self-report questionnaires, projective techniques and intelligence tests, but invites the client to interpret the results, as well as sharing their own interpretation. In pluralistic assessment, the therapist shares their interpretation and understanding of the information that has been collected.
