Humanities Homework Help

Let’s now talk about nomothetic and idiographic assessment. So I mentioned before that it’s often helpful whenevaluating a couple to use different approaches and almost like a funnel approach where we might initially start witha measure that compares our couple to other couples who have taken a similar assessment tool. And so this is callednomothetic assessment. It’s the same as norm referenced assessment.

And when we’re doing that kind of assessment, we’re essentially giving the same set of scales or items orquestionnaires or measures to assess all individuals that we may evaluate, and we’re comparing their scores tonormative data. So if I’m a couples therapist, I might decide I really like to use this particular measure, x, to evaluateall couples who I see. And that would be a nomothetic assessment, if we’re comparing the couples scores to theresults of the normative sample for measure x.

The idiographic assessment is a nice complement to nomothetic assessment. This is where I might be evaluatingdifferent sets of variables for each client– in this case, a couple or individual who I might see and hear what is goingon for the couples specifically or for the individuals within a couple is my reference point for interpreting andselecting– for selecting assessment measures and interpreting the resulting data.

Let me give you an example. If I determine that members of a couple are conflict-avoidant– they don’t like to bring updisagreements that they’re having about certain issues– I might determine that from a general questionnaire aboutrelationship satisfaction. But then if I delve a little bit deeper, I may discover that one member of the coupleexperienced physical abuse as a child. And so that individual has associations to whenever conflict comes up, thatthere is a possibility of some kind of violent retaliation occurring. And so that is definitely a contributing factor for thatparticular member of a couple being conflict-avoidant.

Knowing that unique factor about that person’s background might lead me to do further idiographic assessmentabout how that history of child abuse continues to affect that individual, both in terms of the couple’s relationship andthen also just in terms of that person’s individual functioning. So both approaches can be helpful and cancomplement each other.

Now, one specific example of an idiographic graphic assessment that I want to talk with you about is somethingcalled goal attainment scaling. And this is a personalized way to track progress towards therapy goals. It’s essentiallycreating a unique assessment measure for an individual, for a couple, or for a family.

So what I can do is to take a particular problem– let’s say that the couple is working on in therapy– and translate thatproblem into specific goal that I’m hoping the couple will reach by the end of treatment. And I can place these goalson individual goal attainment scales that identify several different possible outcomes.

I can identify what I think is most likely to occur at the end of treatment if there is some success in treating thisparticular problem and achieving a goal related to that problem. I can also think through what might be a somewhatbetter outcome and a much better than expected outcome with regard to that particular goal. And I can think throughwhat might be a less than expected outcome and a much less than expected outcome with respect to that particulargoal.

And so I’ve got a number of different possible outcomes– one, expected; two, better than expected; two, less thanexpected, and I’m going to assign each of these a number ranging from minus 2, to those that are less than expected,all the way up to positive 2 for those that are more than expected. And I think it will become clearer if I show you aspecific example of a goal attainment scale.

So here I have a goal for a couple that I would like them to be able to acknowledge their partner’s efforts to change.So maybe right now, when I start therapy, what’s happening is that if one member of the partner is trying to changetheir behavior in a positive or adaptive way, the other partner tends not to ever comment on that and vice versa. AndI’d like for them start noticing these changes and reinforcing them verbally.

So what I’m going to do is identify what I think is the most likely outcome with treatment, and that would be what’sright in the middle that I have a score of 0 4, where I might expect that members of the couple will start to commenton the absence of negative behaviors by their partner. So a member of the couple might say something like, Iappreciate you not criticizing the way that I clean up around the house. So the partner is commenting on the absenceof a negative behavior.

That’s an OK outcome, but a somewhat better than expected outcome would be if the couple starts to comment onpositive behaviors that their partner is displaying. So saying things like, I appreciate you planning a date night for usthis week. An even better than expected outcome, a much more than expected outcome that I’m going to assign avalue of positive 2, is if I see strong and regular comments of that nature being made by each member of the couple.

And I can also identify behaviors in the opposite direction that are less than the expected outcome. And I’m going tolabel those minus 1 and minus 2, depending upon how much less than the expected outcome I think those behaviorsqualify for. So for example, a less than expected outcome might be that really neither member of the couple is makingany comments on positive efforts that their partner is making to change. And a much less than expected outcome atminus 2 is that we’re continuing to see complaints about the partner’s behavior instead of any kind of positivecomment. So it’s not just the absence of any comments, it’s that the comments that are being made are mostlynegative.

And so I’ve created a scale now that I can use to evaluate this particular goal. I could rate this goal every couple ofweeks if I wanted to. I could even graph the results and show the couple over time, and this can give them a sense ofthe change that they are achieving with respect to this goal. It also gives me feedback about whether or not we’remaking progress towards this particular goal. And if we’re not for some reason, then I need to go back to the drawingboard and think through what other interventions could I be using in the therapy to try to better achieve this goal.