TA is a semi-structured intervention designed by Stephen E. Finn, who provided assessment and therapy to many types of clients in different settings for over twenty years as he developed this model. TA incorporates the use of psychological testing and addresses the goals of a traditional assessment (i.e., assessing clients’ psychological functioning to understand their presenting problems, identifying a diagnosis, planning subsequent treatment) but it also goes further. Clinicians practicing TA build a collaborative and therapeutic relationship with clients, and use specific techniques and methods to help them reach a more accurate and compassionate understanding of themselves. At the end of a TA, clients often feel more hopeful and have improved self-esteem, and their daily functioning may be enhanced to the point that they do not need subsequent treatment. In other cases, TA helps clients better understand why and how they should continue treatment. The research shows that these clients are more likely to follow through with clinicians’ recommendations than those who undergo a traditional assessment and that they show greater alliance with treatment professionals and a greater rate of change in psychotherapy than clients who have not taken part in TA (see Chapter 3 for a summary of research on the efficacy of TA with different types of clients).

TA can be useful as a therapeutic intervention or as a first step before therapy begins. Given its flexible nature as a brief intervention grounded in assessment procedures, clinicians can employ it as a method of consultation when other interventions have been less successful. Treatment professionals at an impasse with their clients may refer them for a TA with an assessor who then helps answer questions posed by both the referring professional and the client about how to make more progress. In these situations, an assessor conducts a TA with the client while keeping the referring professional involved in ways that will be described in Chapters 4–11. As a result, TA can provide new ways of understanding clients’ struggles and the reasons for treatment impasses that often lead to a positive shift for clients, treating professionals, and the treatment process.

To achieve its goals, TA is structured around eight steps (see Figure 1.1) that will be described in Chapters 4–11 of this book. A TA begins with the first contact with a client (see Chapter 4), which often happens by phone. This is an important moment as the clinician begins relating to the client and sharing information about TA. Then, during the first session (see Chapter 5), the assessor continues to build a therapeutic relationship with the client while collecting their goals for the assessment, framed as “Assessment Questions” (AQs) to be answered by the end of the TA. Addressing the AQs becomes the agreed-upon goal of the TA, and the client and assessor collaborate on this joint project throughout the assessment process. To fulfill this goal, the clinician and client spend several sessions completing and discussing selected psychological tests and engaging in activities that help answer the AQs (see Chapters 6, 7, 8). Finally, the clinician and client discuss the results of the testing and jointly construct answers to the client's AQs during the Summary/Discussion Session (see Chapter 9), and eventually a Follow-up Session (see Chapter 11). Before the follow-up, the clinician sends the client a written report, typically in the form of an individualized letter, similar to the one presented at the beginning of this chapter (see Chapter 10). The structure of TA was designed to meet clients’ needs by using specific theoretical lenses, and was developed based on client input, research, and years of clinical experience. The theoretical lenses TA assessors most commonly use frame how we understand why most clients are searching for psychological help and how best to respond to them.

The extract of Emma's feedback letter (see Chapter 10 for the complete text) provides an example of the possible questions that might motivate a client to ask for a TA. In the 30 years since its initial description in a publication by Finn and Tonsager (1992), many clients have undergone a TA with questions mirroring those that bring clients to traditional assessment or psychotherapy. They wonder, for example, how to make relevant choices in their lives (“Should I go to medical school?”), how to find more satisfaction (“Why am I so unfulfilled even though I have a good job and a lovely family?”), how to change behaviors and symptoms that concern them (“How can I stop cutting myself?” “Why do I drink so much?”), and how to solve problems in close relationships (“How can I get over the death of my mother?” “Why haven’t I been able to have a successful long-term relationship?”).