Ask about an assessment.
Tell us the question you want answered, and we will be in touch to arrange a consultation. Vocation directors referring a candidate can write to us directly.
Get startedPsychological Assessment
An assessment answers a defined question with an interview, standardized testing, records and, with your written permission, conversations with people who know you. The Center conducts three kinds: evaluations of candidates for religious life and ministry, cognitive evaluations after a stroke, seizure or other neurological event, and diagnostic and personality assessments for adults in or considering treatment.
Vocation directors and formation teams refer candidates at several points:
Dr. Manuel served the Jesuits of California and USA West as Director of Vocations and Provincial Assistant for Formation, and later chaired the province review board on sexual misconduct. He is a co-author of a study of the personality characteristics of successful applicants to the priesthood (Plante, Manuel & Tandez, Pastoral Psychology, 1996), part of the research behind the screening protocol many religious communities use.
Standardized personality testing, questionnaires on spiritual life, sexuality, and alcohol and drug use, and a structured interview covering family history, relationships, psychosexual development and spiritual life. With the candidate's authorization, we also speak with the vocation director and others who know the candidate.
The report answers three questions in order. Are there psychological difficulties or defenses that would make religious life hard? What are the candidate's strengths of personality and character? What challenges is the life ahead likely to bring? Those challenges are written as recommendations for formation.
Applicants from faith communities often describe themselves in an especially favorable light on testing, partly because of sincerely held values. Interpretation accounts for this, using norms and research on applicants to religious life.
With the candidate's written authorization, the report goes to the referring vocation director, who reviews it with the candidate. The evaluator joins that review when invited.
A cognitive evaluation measures whether thinking has changed and what explains the change. People come after:
The medical workup comes first, because it shapes both the question and the timing. Testing too early measures recovery still under way: after a stroke or TIA the full evaluation is usually done about three months later, and after a seizure once the after-effects have cleared and any medication has reached a stable dose. We ask for your physician's records and coordinate with your neurologist.
Some questions belong with a board-certified clinical neuropsychologist, such as an opinion before surgery or on fitness to drive or return to work. When the question calls for one, we make the referral and stay in contact.
An estimate of your abilities before the event, then current attention and working memory, processing speed, learning and memory, language, visual and spatial skills, planning and mental flexibility, and motor speed. Testing takes about four hours, with breaks, and can be split across two visits.
Hearing loss, depression, anxiety and trauma can each look like a cognitive decline on testing. The evaluation screens hearing before any spoken test and measures mood, so the report can say which explanation fits.
With your permission, a spouse or family member completes a questionnaire about changes in daily life. Their account sits beside the test results in the report.
A report for you and, with your authorization, your physician, and a feedback meeting where we go through the findings and what to do next.
For adults who want a clearer answer than therapy alone has given, or whose therapist or psychiatrist has asked for one:
The assessment is collaborative. We agree on the question with you at the start, choose tests that answer it, and go through the findings with you in plain language at the end. Many of the questionnaires can be completed at home through our secure client portal.
A conversation with you or the person referring you to set the question the assessment will answer, the tests it needs and the fee.
You sign the consent and any authorizations to speak with others or receive records through the client portal.
An interview, then testing in the office. Questionnaires that do not need an examiner present can be completed at home through the portal.
Medical or prior evaluation records, and conversations with the people you have authorized us to contact.
A written report that answers the referral question, and a meeting to go through it. For religious-life evaluations the report goes to the referring vocation director, as described above.
Assessments are conducted by Dr. Manuel or by a Registered Psychological Associate under his supervision. Every report is reviewed and signed by Dr. Manuel.
Tell us the question you want answered, and we will be in touch to arrange a consultation. Vocation directors referring a candidate can write to us directly.
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