Hey, before we get going, I want to give one last shout-out to Practice Solutions as our podcast sponsor. They have been our sponsor for the past two months and it has been fantastic. I know that a lot of folks have already given them a call to check out their billing services. They do pretty much everything. They do insurance verification. They submit claims. They process payments. They track down payments. They send statements. They do pretty much everything.
If you are making your financial plan for the new year and trying to get things in shape for your practice, I would strongly consider Practice Solutions. They have a very reasonable fee and they are fantastic to deal with. You can get a discount off your first month’s services if you go to practicesol.com/jeremy.
All right. On to the podcast.
[00:01:10] Hey y’all, welcome back to another episode of The Testing Psychologist podcast. In fact, welcome to our last episode of 2017. I can’t believe that we are here. My gosh. I was talking with a friend this morning about how it seems like January 1st has come a little earlier this year than usual for whatever reason. I know for me this year has just flown by.As I was sitting down to record this last podcast, I think that was extra apparent because I started the podcast almost exactly a year ago. I think the first episode came out on January 22nd, 2017. I was certainly planning and recording a lot of those episodes before that. So this time of year [00:02:00] was really meaningful for me as far as the podcast goes because it marks a little bit of a landmark.
When I started all of this, I had no idea where it was going to go. All I knew is that I felt passionate about teaching, sharing knowledge, and trying to help other folks learn how to put testing in business and build a practice around testing. I didn’t know where it was going to go. Luckily, I had a lot of encouragement from my coach, Joe Sanok, at that time, and a lot of other colleagues, family, and friends. It’s been an incredible ride to be able to bring all of this to you over the past year.
At this point, we have some statistics on The Testing Psychologist Podcast and Community. The podcast, this will [00:03:00] be episode 41, which is fantastic. The perfectionist in me would love for it to be closer to 52 because that would mean an episode every week, but I will take it. 41 is pretty good.
Let’s see. We have 538 members in The Testing Psychologist Community on Facebook. That has been incredible to watch that group grow. I’m amazed every day when I see posts in the group. I sit back and think, oh my gosh, I remember when there were just 20 of my psychologist friends to start out the group. It’s continued to grow and the discussion is so awesome to see people talking about the business of testing, different measures they like, and things like that.
So we have 538 members in The Testing Psychologist Community. The podcast itself has nearly [00:04:00] 15,000 downloads at this point. It’s been downloaded in over 20 different countries. We have folks from all over the world listening to the podcast and part of the Facebook group. It’s been awesome.
First and foremost, thank you all for joining me on this journey over the last year or so and walking along with me as I’ve gotten to pursue a passion of mine. It’s been so nice to see others get on board and find some of this helpful. So thank you all.
To end the podcast year, I thought that I would do a 2017 year-in-review. For this year in view, I was thinking, okay, what would be helpful and interesting with this? And so, I thought that I would pick the top 3 Most downloaded podcasts, go back and touch on [00:05:00] some points from those podcasts, and then I’ll throw in a couple of things that I thought were pretty interesting from random podcasts over the course of the year for myself.
Without further ado, here are our top 3 downloaded podcasts.
Number one, Episode #26 with Dr. Karen Postal. For those of you who have been longtime subscribers to the podcast, this probably doesn’t come as a surprise. Dr. Karen Postal is one of the preeminent neuropsychologists here in the country. She’s the current president of the AACN and she’s been very active in the publishing world as well.
What I talked with Dr. Postal about was her, I think most recent book, I’m trying to think, does she have any other book? I don’t think she has other books. She’s done other articles, but her most recent book, Feedback that Sticks, is [00:06:00] what we ended up talking a lot about.
Karen shared so many awesome nuggets of information around how to do a good feedback session during this episode. I think people got a lot out of it. She talked with us about the four key components of a good feedback session. She talked about some mistakes that people often make in a feedback session. One of those is spending way too much time on the data and not enough time on explanations, recommendations, and answering questions for people.
She talked about how to manage difficult feedback. And the way that she suggested that you go about that is she does a best-case, worst-case scenario. I think is very direct and we’ll say things like I know this could be hard to hear. Let me [00:07:00] give you a best-case scenario for 5 or 10 years down the road and I’ll give you a worst-case scenario for 5 or 10 years down the road. We can talk all about what exists at both ends of the spectrum and what might happen in the middle.
Karen also talked about the importance of providing, this is something that stuck with me, she talked about the importance of providing a grieving period during the feedback session for parents or family members who might be hearing something about their child or about their parent that is hard to hear. Sometimes as psychologists, even testing psychologists, we have to be able to provide space for them to grieve, whatever it is they may have been hoping for, the life they may have been hoping for that family member, and just be there with them. And again, do not get stuck in the data.
So this was a cool episode. Karen also talked about the importance of improv [00:08:00] classes because one of the main rules for any of you out there who have done improv, you probably know one of the main rules is that you always say yes. So you take whatever suggestion is thrown out on stage and you roll with it.
Karen put that in context for a feedback session because she was of the mind that as parents or family members may throw out ideas or ask questions or offer opinions during the feedback session, we can get a lot out of just saying yes, finding a way to get on board with what they’re saying or what they’re presenting or how they’re feeling and using that to integrate with the data that we have. Staying on board with people and sticking beside them throughout the feedback process is important.
So if you did not listen to episode #26, I highly recommend you go back and check it out. There was a link to [00:09:00] Karen’s book in the show notes and it’s a fantastic book. I’ve heard from several people actually who went and bought the book after the episode and said, Oh my gosh, this is great.
The premise of the book, I should probably have said this right off the bat, for those of you who don’t know is that she interviewed neuropsychologists and psychologists all over the country, children, adults, different focuses. She asked them several questions about how they conduct their feedback sessions from length to format to who’s in the room to what they say to the language they use. It’s a really good book. So if you have not checked that out, I would recommend it.
All right. Number two, highest downloaded testing psychologist podcast episode, episode #19 with Dr. Aimee Yermish on Assessment for gifted and [00:10:00] intellectually advanced individuals. This was another rich episode. I think it still stands as our longest episode. I think we clocked in maybe an hour and a half. A big part of that was because Aimee had so much good information to share with us.
A few things that I wrote down that stuck with me from the episode with Aimee in addition to the specifics that she talked about in terms of measures to use and how to approach gifted evaluations, and she gave us a lot of resources for gifted children, things like that, but one of the things that I took away from that is that she frames giftedness as a cultural experience of sorts and talked about the fact that it is important for practitioners to be [00:11:00] culturally competent with gifted individuals just like we’re culturally competent with any number of other identities. That was interesting to me. I never heard it framed that way, but when she threw that out there, it made a lot of sense.
Aimee, in the episode, does talk about some ways to become more culturally competent with gifted individuals, but just the introduction of the idea that this is a competency that we should have is I think very valuable.
Another thing that Aimee talked about was when we do feedback sessions with more gifted kids and their parents, their parents tend to be gifted as well, right? There’s a big heritability to IQ. We often end up in the room with pretty bright parents. And so for those individuals, and in Aimee’s practice, she tends to do longer feedback sessions and more [00:12:00] detailed reports.
It’s interesting. It’s I think nice contrast to what Karen Postal might say, but for those parents, Aimee spends a little bit more time in the data and will entertain questions around statistics, and standard deviation, and dive into some of those more nuanced aspects of the report for parents of gifted kids because those parents tend to have a lot of questions. They want to understand the nature of the testing, what it means, and how to make sense of it.
So, Aimee does longer feedback sessions and like I said, a lot more detailed reports so that gifted parents can fully get the nuance of the testing process and your thinking, your interpretation, summary, diagnosis, and all those different pieces that go into the report.
[00:13:00] Now, another piece that I took away that was a, Oh my gosh, light bulb kind of moment was that Aimee said something like, “Bright psychologists also have to do their own work around being bright or else that will come out as countertransference with our testing clients.” For me, I, again, had never really thought about intelligence as an identity and certainly not something that could come out as countertransference or come into the work with our clients, but when Aimee said that, it’s like, Oh my goodness, of course, it is.So that is another little nugget that I took away from mine and Aimee’s podcast together.
Like I said, she spoke at length about testing with gifted individuals. I really can’t do it justice here in just this [00:14:00] 5-minute little span. So again, check it out. Go back. Episode #19 with Dr. Aimee Yermish was our number two most downloaded episode this year.
Now, our number three most downloaded episode of The Testing Psychologist podcast. This was episode #24 with Dr. Dustin Wahlstrom and James Henke. It was all about Q-interactive.
For those of you who for whatever reason, have not heard about Q-interactive, Q-interactive is a digital test administration platform. It’s owned and distributed by Pearson. This is a way of administering many tests on iPads. There are a lot of questions that come up in the Facebook community about gosh, how do I afford testing materials when I’m starting out? This comes up [00:15:00] all over the place. What I talked about with Dustin and James was in large part, how Q-interactive is a cost-effective solution for people starting out and even for folks who’ve been in practice for a while.
Like I said, Q-interactive is a digital test administration platform. They have access to many of the most common tests that we use. A lot of the Wechsler scale, the WAIS, the WISC, the WPSI, the WIMS, the WIAT, the NEPSY, and The Children’s Memory Scale. What else? The CELF is on there.
There are a ton of tests that you could administer through Q-interactive. It’s a really good way to get up and running without a huge outlay of cash because their pricing model is, basically you have to buy two iPads if you don’t already have them. At this point, [00:16:00] I think you’re out $700 if you buy two brand-new iPads. Then beyond that, you have a yearly license which grants you a year of access to Q-interactive tests. I believe that’s about $250. It varies depending on how many tests you get. And then you pay by the subtest.
So this is a great solution. You can get away for under $1000 to get started compared to if you bought all of those testing batteries independently, you’d be looking at at least probably $7,000, maybe $10, 000 for all those test kits. So, it’s an easy way to get into testing, and then you pay based on what you use.
So if you’re just starting out, if you want to get your feet wet, if you aren’t sure if you want to make testing a huge priority in your practice, this is a great way to do it. And even for established practice owners, it’s, I think, really valuable. The last [00:17:00] test that we bought, the WPSI, I opted for Q-interactive instead of buying the full kit and it’s been great.
In this episode though, we talk all about how Q-interactive came to be. We do get into a little bit of the development, the standardization, and research equivalency between Q-interactive and paper and pencil tests and that sort of thing. We talk a lot about the cost and how that can save you some money. We do talk a little bit about what might keep you from using Q-interactive and who it might not be for. And then we also discuss future directions for the platform and what else is coming.
These guys are kind. They’re knowledgeable. They both have been working with Q-interactive for I think going on six years now. They’ve been in those positions. And so they are super knowledgeable.
If you are someone who [00:18:00] is thinking about jumping into testing or private practice and are worried about the cost, I would highly recommend that you listen to this episode and start to get some sense of what Q-interactive is all about. I think this is good.
There’s a nice coincidence happening here too because I’ve held off on any announcement about this, but things are looking like they’re going to be finalized very soon where testing psychologist listeners and testing psychologist community members on Facebook will have access to a deal of sorts from Q-interactive. I’ve been working out the details to nail down a deal with them to provide some benefits to our listeners and Facebook community members. So, look for that very soon.
If you’re not in the Facebook community, this is a great [00:19:00] time to jump in. If you have not subscribed to the podcast, this is a great time to do that as well, because I can guarantee that the first announcements and the first people to know about the Q-interactive deal will be on the podcast and in the Facebook group. So take a couple of seconds and search for us on Facebook. It’s called The Testing Psychologist Community. Likewise, if you have 15 or 20 seconds, just jump into the iTunes podcast store or Google Play or wherever you’re getting the podcast and do me a favor and subscribe to the podcast. That’s a great way to show support and make sure that I continue to have some leverage to talk with these companies and bring these kinds of deals to you.
Those were our top three most downloaded episodes. Again, #26, All about feedback with Dr. Karen Postal, #19, All about gifted assessment with [00:20:00] Dr. Aimee Yermish, and #24 with Dustin Wahlstrom and James Henke, All about Q-interactive.
Now, I said that I have two personal favorites that jumped out as I was looking back over the podcasts that I’ve done and I wanted to mention those too.
One of those was episode…, I don’t have it right in front of me, so I’m going to stumble just a little bit here. Let’s see, episode #16 with Kelly Higdon. This is really interesting. When I interviewed Kelly for episode #16, I knew of her through Joe Sanok who’s with Practice of the Practice and who was my personal coach for many months. So I knew of her and Kelly was really kind. She was really kind. She did a great podcast. We [00:21:00] talked all about building your perfect practice.
Kelly is like a walking embodiment of building a lifestyle practice. She completely gave up her therapeutic practice, which she maintained for many years. She walked away from that basically to focus completely on an online coaching business that would bring her the lifestyle that she was looking for.
She runs zynnyme.com. They do a business school boot camp. She also does individual coaching at kellyhigdon.com, but she talked on our podcast on episode #16 about building your perfect practice, and like she does, as I found out over the subsequent months as I got to know her better, Kelly gets to it.
One question that came [00:22:00] up as we were doing the podcast is, I was talking about how all of us, well, a lot of us anyway, don’t like writing reports. She asked, “Well, I would have to put it out there and ask, why do all of you do this thing that you dislike so much? Why are you choosing an aspect or a modality of practice that requires you to do something that you don’t like?” That was like a slap across the face. I thought that’s a great question, Kelly.
So if you listened to that episode and missed it, or if you haven’t heard it and are hearing it here for the first time, I think that’s a great thing to be thinking about. It expands to any other aspect of your practice. Why are you doing anything that you don’t want to do? And if you are, let’s find a way to change it. And if you want to do things differently, [00:23:00] let’s talk about how that might happen.
Kelly is a big proponent of creating the practice that fits your lifestyle, whether that’s financial, whether that’s a schedule that you want to keep, whether that’s a certain number of clients. So if that is interesting at all to you and you haven’t heard it, I would go back and check out episode #16 with Kelly Higdon.
Now, the other episode that jumped out to me was one that was pretty early on. This was episode #10 with Dr. Megan Warner. Megan and I talked about therapeutic assessment. This episode was pretty high up in the download list. It was definitely in the top 10. The material was really good.
Megan talked all about therapeutic assessment, which is a modality or approach, I suppose, about [00:24:00] how to do testing in a way that is collaborative, that takes the client’s well-being into account. It really does away with that medical model approach. She integrates personality assessment in particular into her therapeutic practice. And so she talks all about what measures to use, she’s a big fan of the PAI, and how she might integrate personality assessment with her therapy clients and how to market something like that out in your community. All of that is super valuable.
Megan studied with Les Morey, who was one of the authors of the PAI. So she has a ton of knowledge and she’s so well-spoken about these things. So I would recommend that you go listen to the episode if you have any interest in doing a little more, I would say light assessment, that is not a full cognitive battery. She was great.
Beyond the knowledge that jumped out, [00:25:00] Megan and I, I think had a nice rapport. She comes across as a very genuine, well-meaning, and easy to talk to individual. So much so that, this is a funny story from that podcast, after that podcast came out, I got feedback from several individuals about how they either wished Megan was their friend or they thought that Megan was the nicest person. That came in several forms.
The funniest example was probably my own mom who listens to all of my podcasts, of course, which is embarrassing and funny in and of itself, but she texted me after the podcast and said something like, “That Megan Warner is so nice. She is just such a good person.” The fact that my mom picked up on that and was [00:26:00] texting me about Megan stuck in my mind.
Anyway, Megan and I have maintained contact over the months and she’s just a fantastic person, but that is one that jumped out to me as well.
It’s hard to capture everything. We’ve done 40 episodes. There’ve been a number of tremendous guests. I feel so fortunate to have been able to speak with all of these individuals and gain so much knowledge myself just from being on the mic with each of these folks and being able to talk about their areas of expertise. So, it’s been great. It’s been an awesome year.
Thanks to all my guests. Thanks to all of you for listening. I’m really excited about the upcoming year. I just continue to work on moving things around in my schedule so that I can dedicate more and more time to the podcast. We have some great guests coming [00:27:00] up.
If you have not subscribed to the podcast, I would invite you to do that. I’d love to have you as a regular listener. And like I said, that’s the best way to show support and I can turn that support into nice deals and advantages with testing companies, other resources, and providers of other services and things like that. So if you haven’t subscribed, please do so. If you haven’t joined us in The Testing Psychologist Community, you are very much invited to do that. We’re on Facebook.
And if you are interested in consulting, please give me a shout. You can find out more about consulting and what that looks like at thetestingpsychologist.com/consulting. I would love to talk with you. If it’s not right for you, that’s totally okay. If it is, I’d love to work with you.
[00:28:00] Thanks again. This is awesome. Hope you have a great New Year’s, great holiday season, and I will catch y’all in 2018.