Psychological Assessment of Alleged Child Sexual Abuse Victims

Psychological Assessment is different from therapy. A psychologist must know which is being requested and when one stops and the next begins. Likewise, clinical goals are different from forensic goals. Clinical goals in assessment relate to identifying problems in functioning with the plan of remediation or intervention. Forensic goals in assessment pertain to addressing questions of interest to a legal and/or court procedure.

Psychological reports may contain any or all of these issues, but psychologists should be clear as to what they are pursuing and why, especially when dealing with cases of Child Sexual Abuse (CSA). In addition, non-psychologist mental health professionals have many important roles in the assessment process of CSA cases as well..

This section will primarily limit comments to issues pertaining to the assessment processes utilized by psychologists which are usually different from assessment issues concerning other mental health professionals and forensic examiners. Naturally, psychologists sometimes find themselves in the roles that forensic interviewers and/or mental health professionals occupy, but it is not always necessary to have the training and credentials of a psychologist to fill some of these other roles.