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Theories, Models, and Practices for Understanding Gender, Race, and Ethnicity in Clinical Assessment

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Handbook of Race-Ethnicity and Gender in Psychology

Abstract

For most psychologists, assessment is an important and commonly practiced clinical activity. Addressing our professional curiosity and understanding about the human experience are a complex process that involves the understanding of factors with varied etiologies, varied course of progress, and varied multidimensional qualities and characteristics. Formal assessment can begin to help us organize these complex factors. Analogous to manipulating and transforming a “ball of wax” handed to us by our clients, assessment is likely to be impacted by who is doing the perceiving and handling of the “wax.” That is, the practitioner’s level of training, experience, and competency in assessment. The assessment process is also shaped by the referral question. Moreover, results from an assessment have a plethora of outcomes and consequences for the recipient of the evaluation. In this chapter, we discuss assessment as practiced by various psychologists, including clinical, projective, and objective assessment procedures, and explore ways to consider race, ethnicity, gender, and their intersectionality within these various assessment domains. We also provide recommendations for considering race, ethnicity, and gender in the assessment process and conclude with a case study that illustrates how to consider these variables in the scoring, interpretation, and formulation process.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ, 07043, USA

    Milton A. Fuentes

  2. The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, Chicago, IL, 60654, USA

    Hector Y. Adames

Authors
  1. Milton A. Fuentes
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  2. Hector Y. Adames
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Milton A. Fuentes .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Columbia University Teachers College, New York, USA

    Marie L. Miville

  2. Department of Human Development and Psyc, Howard University, Washington, USA

    Angela D. Ferguson

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Fuentes, M.A., Adames, H.Y. (2014). Theories, Models, and Practices for Understanding Gender, Race, and Ethnicity in Clinical Assessment. In: Miville, M., Ferguson, A. (eds) Handbook of Race-Ethnicity and Gender in Psychology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8860-6_14

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