Psychological assessment is one of the core activities of professional psychologists. The endproduct of assessment is usually a psychological report. Whereas there is extensive research guiding most aspects of psychological assessment, there is an overall paucity of research on the psychological report itself. As a result, clinicians usually rely on precedent, sample reports, folklore, habit, and intuition. This series has been organized to present a summary of what is known regarding research and issues related to psychological reports. The intended result is that clinicians will have more solid, empirically based guidance on how best to write their reports. It is also hoped that an agenda for research will be clearly articulated.
Approaching this topic has been difficult. Decades ago, it was possible to discuss what "a" psychological report should look like. The modal report in the 1950s and into the 1960s was a personality evaluation requested by a psychiatrist to assist with diagnosis and treatment planning. The early surveys by Tallent and Reiss (1959) provided some help in this process. Currently, however, there is far more diversity. Clinical psychologists are called on to write reports in medical, forensic, psychiatric, organizational, or educational settings. Within these settings, there is considerable diversity due to the many questions that might be asked as well as the numerous specific instruments available to help answer these questions. For example, within forensic settings there are guidelines on how to proceed with and write up child custody evaluations (American Psychological Association [APA], 1994[APA], , 1999)). There are quite different procedures and new instruments that have been designed to address comprehension of Miranda rights, competency to stand trail, capacity to make legal decisions, and techniques to detect exaggeration of psychiatric symptoms. These referral questions and new technologies raise technical, ethical, and procedural issues that all need integration into a report. There is also considerable diversity in length of reports, how they are organized, inclusion of raw data, use of everyday (vs. technical) language, and the degree of organization.