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Post by nypd2 on Sept 20, 2003 13:42:31 GMT -5
I just past the medical for NYPD and will take the written psychological in three weeks. Has any one here taken the NYPD psychological or any Psych for that matter. I would like to know what to prepare for.
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Post by DrPhil on Sept 20, 2003 15:47:22 GMT -5
You can't prepare for the psych test. It is a written test that will try to determine if you have any elevated levels of mental illness or emotional issues. All of us have one or more of the criteria for mental illness (usually takes a minimum of 4-6 of the criteria over a specific time period to be classified as a mental illness) at one time or another, and the test is designed to detect people that are trying to hide this. You just have to answer honestly without thinking too much about the question. If it asks if you ever felt depressed before, you most likely have (when the Mets lost, when you failed an exam in school, when a family/friend died). These are normal emotions, and the test is designed to realize this. Now if you think 'is the question asking me if I have depresion' and you answer no, when the test is calculated at the end, you will appear to be misleading the test.
There is some debate on the validity of the psych test for pre-employment purposes. However, if you 'fail' the test (which means you showed elevated readings in certain areas, or you were shown to be too defensive) you will have to visit the department psychologist for a face to face evaluation. This is much more effective, but is time comsuming and costly, so they do the test to 'weed out' the sane ones. And even then, the so called sane ones can still pass the psych even though they have issues. Psychology for pre-employment purposes detects the obvious unfit, but doesn't alway get everyone.
So the bottom line. Don't prepare....don't read up on the test as you might read too much into the questions. Just answer them knowing that we ALL have felt bad, sad, mad, and glad at some point in our lives. Worst that can happen is that a psychologist tells you you have some issues....you can get help for that and have a happier life.
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