Employing Assessment Systems in Social Work: A Practitioner-Researcher Approach

This case study employs the practitioner-researcher approach to study the social work assessment process through the most prominent diagnostic and assessment systems. The author employs the Person-in-Environment system to assess an elderly woman and compares the assessment results with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual, and the International Classification of Functioning Disability and Health. The strengths and limits of each classification system are delineated according to the case parameters. The adoption of the Person-in-Environment system in combination with specific parameters of the other classification systems proved suitable for the biopsychosocial assessment of the case.