Integrative Assessment ─ A Guide for Counselors

Integrative Assessment for Counselors presents valuable assessment information and guidance which emerging helping professionals, students, and those preparing for licensure can apply to various mental health, school, community, and organizational settings. Using a case study approach, and written in a practitioner’s voice, this practical guide presents a comprehensive, balanced look at a number of topics readers can put to immediate use in their practices including assessment information and guidance, testing, the risks and resources approach to assessment, interviewing principles and methods, exploring presenting problems and readiness for change, informal and formal observations, assessing the therapeutic alliance, standardized risk assessments, dangerousness to self and others, and assessing substance abuse.

Dr. Andrew Gersten is a private practitioner specializing in the assessment and treatment of children with emotional and behavioral disorders. Since his internship training at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center Developmental Clinic in 1986 he has provided cognitive and psychological assessments of children—pre-school through adolescence. He has worked in community mental health as a therapist, assessor, and supervisor and has consulted to elementary and middle schools on school climate, behavioral program development and special education services. In addition, Andy is a teacher, presenter, supervisor, and researcher. He has been teaching in counseling programs for over 19 years.

Andy is currently adjunct faculty at Antioch University New England where he has been teaching Assessment: Principles and Methods and Psychopathology: an Ecological Approach since 2008. Prior to Antioch he was an Associate Professor of Counseling at Rivier College, Nashua, New Hampshire, where he taught graduate students in school and mental health counseling and teacher education programs. His courses included: Assessment and Appraisal, Theories of Counseling, Human Development, Child Therapy, Techniques of Counseling, Fundamentals of Research, and Professional Issues and Orientation. He has presented at regional and national counseling and psychology conferences on various topics including: DSM-5, counselor intentionality, school counseling models, and Interpersonal problem solving. Dr. Gersten has co-authored several articles on the affects of shift work on sleep and well-being and counselor intentionality. A member of: the American Counseling Association, Association of Counselor Education and Supervision, New Hampshire Psychological Association, and American Psychological Association his current research focuses on the development of intentionality in counselor trainees.