Symptom Validity Assessment: From Hesitation to Confidence

Essential knowledge and practical skills for non-forensic, clinical practice.

€245,00

Date: January 11 & 18, 2027

Time: 7:00 PM – 10:00 PM CET

Duration: 2 × 3 hours = 6 hours total

Location: Online

Information

A live, two-day online workshop with Dr. Grant Blake

Overcome your symptom validity assessment fears by learning the ‘who, what, when, where, how and why’ of these evaluations in clinical practice.

Symptom validity assessments are often avoided in clinical practice due to limited training opportunities and a complex range of ethical dilemmas that may emerge. However, how often do we consider the ethical dilemmas of not evaluating symptom validity in treatment contexts? By contrast, it is standard practice for neuropsychologists to evaluate validity in clinical practice. Perhaps validity assessments are not something we need to be afraid of or avoid. Perhaps there are clinical benefits to knowing whether a patient’s presentation is reliable. 

This workshop aims to overcome clinician fears about symptom validity assessments by introducing essential knowledge and practical skills in symptom validity assessments. The workshop introduces clinicians to the ‘who, what, when, where, how and why’ of symptom validity assessments in non-forensic, clinical practice.

What you'll gain

• Confidence to research and select tests suitable to your treatment setting.
• Confidence to screen the reliability of a patient’s reported PTSD, depression and anxiety, mild cognitive impairment, inattention/ADHD, and psychosis symptoms. 
• Confidence to continue upskilling in symptom validity evaluations.

Learning objectives

By the end of this workshop, you will be able to:

• Use key terms in symptom validity assessments (e.g., partial malingering, false imputation, factitious disorder etc)
• Describe the difference between SVTs and PVTs.
• Know who to assess, when to assess, and how to assess.
• Understand the limitations of validity test findings.
• Know and apply the Sherman et al diagnostic criteria for malingering. 
• Identify appropriate tests for:
  • PTSD and complex-PTSD
  • Anxiety and depression
  • Inattention and hyperactivity.
  • Psychosis
  • Mild cognitive impairment 
• Practice integrating multiple test findings.

Presenter:

Dr Grant Blake is a Clinical Psychologist on the Sunshine Coast of Australia. He first qualified in Tasmania, which is a small island at the southeast of Australia. He worked in clinical-forensic private practice before relocating to the East Coast of Australia. Grant continues to work in clinical and forensic psychology, including in assessment, therapy and research roles. He is a Single Expert Witness in the Federal Circuit Court and Family Court of Australia, and he is approved as an Independent Court Expert in the Mental Health Court of Queensland which deals with complex criminal law matters, such as insanity and fitness to stand trial. His PhD was on the topic of fitness to stand trial, and he has supervised PhD students in the fields of malingering assessment within criminal law. However, Grant would primarily describe himself as a passionate trauma therapist. Grant established the Intensive Trauma Treatment Centre in 2024, which is strongly based on the Dutch Psytrec and Altrecht models of intensive trauma treatment.