Assessments
Not a verdict. A way of understanding.
Sometimes something feels off — and you want to understand why. Maybe your child is struggling at school in ways that don’t quite make sense. Maybe you’ve spent years feeling like you’re working twice as hard as everyone else just to keep up. Maybe someone has suggested an assessment and you’re not sure what to expect.
A psychological assessment can bring clarity to questions that have been sitting unanswered for a long time. For many people — and for many families — it’s a relief.
What we think an assessment is for
We’ll be honest: we didn’t offer assessments when we first opened. We were cautious about the weight a diagnostic label can carry, and about the way a label can sometimes become the thing people see instead of the person.
We still hold that caution. But we’ve come to understand that a good assessment — done well, with care — doesn’t reduce a person. It illuminates them.
The assessments we conduct are not about finding what’s wrong. They are about understanding how a person thinks, learns, and experiences the world — what they’re working with, what they’re working against, and what the people around them could do differently to help them thrive.
Every report we produce includes a genuine account of the person’s strengths. And a significant part of our work is directing recommendations not just at the individual, but at the environments around them — schools, families, workplaces — because difference only becomes difficulty when the environment fails to adapt.
We don’t think there is anything wrong with being autistic or having ADHD. We think the world is often poorly designed for the people who experience it differently. Our assessments try to address both sides of that equation.
How our assessments work
Assessments at The Talking Couch are a genuinely collaborative process — between our practitioners, and between us and you. While every assessment follows the structure required by its framework, no two assessments look the same. We pay close attention to the person in front of us and adjust how we work to suit them, while still gathering the data we need to produce findings that will hold up. We take as many sessions as necessary to get there. The flat fee covers everything.
Every assessment includes:
A thorough intake to understand your history and what questions you’re hoping to answer — Standardised assessment tasks, questionnaires, and where relevant, school or workplace observations — A comprehensive written report with findings, strengths, and practical recommendations — A feedback session with your practitioner to walk through the results together, ask questions, and talk through next steps
The feedback session is included as standard — not an optional extra. In our experience, it’s one of the most valuable parts of the process. Understanding what the results actually mean for your life, in plain language, with someone who knows your story, makes a real difference.
How our assessments work
Assessments at The Talking Couch are a genuinely collaborative process — between our practitioners, and between us and you. While every assessment follows the structure required by its framework, no two assessments look the same. We pay close attention to the person in front of us and adjust how we work to suit them, while still gathering the data we need to produce findings that will hold up. We take as many sessions as necessary to get there. The flat fee covers everything.
Every assessment includes:
A thorough intake to understand your history and what questions you’re hoping to answer — Standardised assessment tasks, questionnaires, and where relevant, school or workplace observations — A comprehensive written report with findings, strengths, and practical recommendations — A feedback session with your practitioner to walk through the results together, ask questions, and talk through next steps
The feedback session is included as standard — not an optional extra. In our experience, it’s one of the most valuable parts of the process. Understanding what the results actually mean for your life, in plain language, with someone who knows your story, makes a real difference.
