One of the difficulties inherent in psychological report writing is that writers have writing experience, psychologists have psychology experience, and never the twain shall meet. This can result in writing that incorrectly represents data or symptoms, or—conversely—reports that are overly technical or dry.

Many testing companies (i.e., Pearson, PAR) have started offering generative AI report writing software, and computer-based tests have long included interpretive report options (as opposed to score reports). For some providers, this is perfect. 

However, the danger of reports written by computers is that they lack nuance, can be overly pejorative, and are not easily able to incorporate context. They are not written for a lay audience, and they can be highly technical and may use vocabulary that does not easily translate to conversations with patients or clients. Even computer-written reports designed specifically to hand out to clients tend to be fairly boilerplate. 

Every week I’ll be sharing a very brief tip to help you use kinder language, include useful context, and communicate data and observations accurately. I hope these tips will be useful to you regardless of your place on the writer to psychologist Likert scale. 

Welcome!