Our Diagnostic, Assessment and Therapeutic Approach

Our assessments have two components:
   Cognitive/Behavioral
   Psycho Dynamic

  • The Cognitive Behavioral Component
  • Identifies the conscious cognitive aspect of problems such as
       Underachievement
       Self destructive behavior
       Procrastination
       Perfectionism
  • Misperceptions and negative thinking associated with these problems are reality tested. Distortions in thinking are systematically corrected
  • Specific actions and behaviors are established to address the problems
  • The emotional component is assumed to be only a reaction to the problem-never a primary cause
  • The Psychodynamic Component
    • Identifying the context in which the problem arose: a careful personal history establishes a past and current context
      • This dimension has been virtually eliminated by psycho educational and neuropsychological assessments.
      • Consequently these types of assessments are done outside the context of a person’s life and consider emotional factors as always secondary.
    • Contextual factors themselves do not cause symptoms or problems but emotional reactions to them may
    • Contextual factors include :

      Life circumstances
      Early educational experiences
      Trauma
      Family dynamics
      Peer relationships
      Emotional reactions to these and other contextual factors often persist in the form of unresolved emotional conflicts such as:
         The “inner experience” of having a superior endowment
         The way family, peers and teachers have reacted to giftedness
    • These can often be summarized as a central dynamic conflict
    • A psychodynamic formulation has three functions:
      • It describes how the central emotional conflict became detracted from its original context ( i.e.giftedness and it’s development) and was then displaced and expressed as dysfunctional behavior, a cognitive dysfunction or a physical problem.
      • It is a method for distinguishing between
              Emotional reactions to a problem
              Emotional causes or the problem
      • The formulation focuses the therapeutic process toward resolution of the central conflict about giftedness and a restoration of full gifted potential.