Psychological diagnosis, being one of the key areas in the practice of a practicing specialist, has significant weight in all his work. So, without it, it becomes impossible to carry out psychoprophylaxis, or counseling, or examination. Psychological diagnostics is a determining component of testing the effectiveness of the medical and pedagogical process. It is necessary when clarifying the structure of developmental disorders and learning abilities in children, when differentiating pathologies, in order to justify the methods of the most effective corrective and educational influence and other things.
This branch of science provides for various psychodiagnostic techniques. They are developed and applied for the most effective recognition of individual human abilities.
In a practical sense, psychological diagnosis is the process of determining one or another disease. In this case, a description of the state is carried out using certain techniques; it can be an element of an experiment or act as an independent method of research. Diagnosis of personality, in addition, may also represent the field of activity of a practitioner.
The practical use of this area of science is noted in various areas of the specialist. For example, psychological diagnostics are used by a psychologist both during counseling or correction, and in cases when he is the author or participant in research or experiments. However, as practice shows, most often this area of activity is an independent, separate type of practice.
The purpose of psychodiagnostics is to make psychological diagnoses - an assessment of the existing psychological state of people.
During the examination, specialists determine three main stages:
- Collection of information.
- Processing and interpretation of the data.
- Diagnosis or prognosis.
Seen from a theoretical perspective, discipline deals with constant and variable indicators that characterize the inner world of a person. On the one hand, psychological diagnostics can be considered as a way by which the verification of theoretical constructions is carried out. On the other hand, this discipline reflects the way of moving from generalization and abstract theory to concrete facts.
Psychodiagnostics helps to solve several problems.
So, discipline allows you to establish in a person (s) certain psychological qualities and properties or characteristics of behavior. In addition, psychodiagnostics describes diagnosed behavioral and psychological characteristics in those situations when necessary. Discipline allows you to determine the level of development of a particular property, to express it in specific qualitative and quantitative quantities. Psychodiagnostics also helps to identify the degree of development of the studied characteristics in various people.
All the above tasks are solved within the discipline, both independently and in combination. This mainly depends on the purpose of the ongoing research. It should be noted that in almost all cases, except for a qualitative description of the results obtained, it is necessary to master the methods of quantitative analysis.
Among the main methods of psychodiagnostics, it is worth highlighting interrogative, productive, affirmative, effective, unconscious, physiological, conscious, sensory, technical, blank and others. Moreover, the same technique can be qualified in accordance with different criteria, and therefore, it can belong to different classification groups.