Live Authentically. Love deeply. Lead Boldly.

So we’ve talked about what assessments are and why ethics matter. Now let’s get to what you really want to know: What am I actually going to ask you to do? What are these mysterious tools, and why would I suggest one over another?

Let me pull back the curtain on this.

How I Actually Choose What to Use

You know what bugs me? When therapists act like they have some secret formula for picking assessments. Truth is, it’s not that complicated. Hays and Hood (2023) talk about matching tools to specific needs, but here’s how it really works in my office:

I listen to what’s bugging you. Then I think about what might help us understand it better.

Keep fighting about the same damn thing over and over? Let’s look at communication patterns. Feel like roommates instead of lovers? We’ll explore emotional connection. Worried about getting married when your parents had a messy divorce? Time to dig into family patterns.

It’s not rocket science. It’s just being intentional about getting the information that’ll actually help YOU.

The Big Three in My Practice

The Gottman Relationship Checkup (Or As I Call It: The Deep Dive)

This one’s like getting a full physical for your relationship. The Gottman folks have been studying couples for decades, and this assessment covers pretty much everything—how you fight, how you connect, how you dream together.

Last month, I had a couple take this who were convinced they were terrible at everything. The results? They were relationship rockstars when it came to friendship and shared meaning. They just sucked at conflict. Suddenly, instead of feeling like failures, they had one specific thing to work on. Game changer.

What I love about this tool (and what Hays and Hood, 2023, emphasize about quality assessments) is that it’s been tested on thousands of couples. It’s not some random questionnaire I found online. It actually tells us useful stuff.

Genograms (The “Oh THAT’S Why We Do That” Tool)

Okay, genograms might be my favorite thing ever. Picture this: we’re sitting together, and I’ve got a big piece of paper. We start mapping out your families—not just who’s who, but the relationships. Who was close? Who fought? Who got divorced? Who was the peacemaker?

Then—and this is where it gets good—patterns start jumping out.

I’ll never forget this couple where both partners were oldest children of divorce. Both had become the family mediator as kids. Fast forward 20 years, and they’re exhausting themselves trying to manage each other’s emotions. When we saw it laid out on paper? Mind. Blown.

Hays and Hood (2023) call genograms a “visual assessment tool,” but I call them relationship archaeology. We’re digging up the patterns that shaped you before you even met each other.

Prepare/Enrich (The “Let’s Not Be Surprised Later” Assessment)

This one’s huge for engaged couples or newlyweds. It looks at all the stuff that tends to blow up later if you don’t talk about it now—money, sex, in-laws, kids, career goals.

True story: I had a couple who’d been together five years, planning their wedding, totally in love. The assessment revealed they had opposite ideas about having kids. Not whether to have them (they both wanted kids), but when, how many, and who’d stay home. They’d literally never discussed the details.

Were they freaked out? Hell yes. But better to freak out in my office than three years into marriage, right? Hays and Hood (2023) talk about how assessments like this “facilitate important conversations,” but what they really do is force you to have the talks you’ve been avoiding.

Here’s What Actually Happens

Let me demystify this process:

1. We talk first. I don’t just throw assessments at you. We discuss what’s going on and what might help.
2. You complete it (usually at home). Most of these you can do online, in your pajamas, with a glass of wine if that helps. Some couples make it a date night.
3. I review it before we meet. I’m looking for patterns, surprises, and discussion points.
4. We unpack it together. This is the good part. We go through what it means, what fits, what doesn’t, and what it tells us about next steps.
5. We use it as a jumping-off point. The assessment isn’t the therapy—it just helps us know where to focus.

When Assessments Surprise Us (In Good and Bad Ways)

Sometimes assessments confirm what you already know. “Yep, we definitely need to work on communication.” Cool, now we have specifics.

But sometimes they surprise the hell out of everyone. Like the couple who thought they had intimacy problems but scored super high on emotional connection. Turns out, they were just exhausted from having a new baby. Different problem, different solution.

Or the couple who came in for “minor tune-ups” but the assessment revealed serious underlying resentments. Hard to see? Yes. But you can’t fix what you don’t acknowledge.

The Part Nobody Tells You

Here’s something Hays and Hood (2023) mention that I want to emphasize: These tools are only as good as your honesty. If you answer how you think you “should” feel, or what you think your partner wants to hear, we get garbage data.

I had someone recently admit they lied on an assessment because they didn’t want to look bad. You know what? That took guts to admit. We redid it with brutal honesty, and THEN we got somewhere.

Your Turn to Drive

Look, at the end of the day, these are just tools. Fancy, research-based, often helpful tools—but still just tools. You’re the expert on your relationship. My job is to help you see it more clearly and give you strategies that actually work.

So when we use assessments, speak up:

• “This question doesn’t make sense for us”
• “This result feels off”
• “Can we dig deeper into this part?”
• “I answered this weird because…”

That’s not undermining the process. That’s making it work for YOU.

Next up, I’ll share how to get the most out of this whole assessment thing—including what to do when the results are hard to hear. Because sometimes they are, and that’s okay.

Final post coming: “Making Assessments Work: Your Guide to Getting the Most from the Process”