Testing Psychological Testing Services InternationalTM (PTSITM) is in the vanguard of developing theoretical and empirically-based psychological assessment tools administered over the Internet. One such test is the Self Administered Global Apperception ScalesTM - the SAGASTM - which not only is the first Internet apperception test, but the first apperception test to be extensively normed. Selection criteria for the fifteen SAGASTM photographs focused on stimuli relevant across gender, race, and age that elicited meaningful and divergent psychological themes. After an extensive review of the literature in the area of thematic content analysis, the Psychiatric Content Analysis and Diagnosis computer scoring system was selected as the intial analysis program. Developed by Louis Gottschalk and Robert Bechtel (1989, 1993), the scales measure a broad spectrum of cognitive and affective variables whose construct validity has been ascertained by a myriad of studies spanning over thirty years of research in the United States, South America, Europe and Australia (see Gottschalk and Gleser, 1969; Gottschalk, 1979 and 1995). For a list of the Psychiatric Content Analysis and Diagnosis scales and subscales, please CLICK HERE. These scales have been utilized in diverse clinical and research areas, including to gain a general understanding of clients' psycho-emotional states and traits; predicting psychotherapeutic and psychopharmacological treatment outcomes; serving as an adjunct to other measures in the diagnosis of alcoholism and other drug dependencies; aiding in the preliminary detection of possible subtle, neurologically-based brain impairment; predicting survival time for patients with metastactic cancer; ascertaining affective states in dreams; and even studying differences in cognitive functioning of presidential candidates during election debates, and predicting duration of labor during childbirth! Many of the scales have been correlated with glucose metabolic rates in different cortical locations - to this extent being validated at the neurobiological level. The SAGASTM has the advantages typical of projective measures - e.g., the client does not know what variables are being assessed and what in their responses is being analyzed. Hence, it is hard to falsify answers. Indeed, the current content analysis method reveals underlying factors that are out of the client's awareness. In this way, the scoring approach to the SAGASTM apperceptive material - carefully normed across gender, age and race - has the measurement strengths of traditional self-report assessment inventories and observer rating scales, while minimizing the weaknesses of such methods in terms of measurement errors. Furthermore, since all scoring is performed by a sophisticated content analysis computer program, there is no inter-rater error to obfuscate results. Hence, the SAGASTM is an excellent clinical tool to more fully understand the client's underlying perceptions, affects, motives and traits. This can be very helpful or clinical intake and ongoing treatment directions; for general psychological assessment data; and for diagnositic issues faced by therapists, as well as by physicians who are placed in the position of prescribing medication for psychological and affective states without having formal assessment data upon which to base decisions. The SAGASTM is also a unique forensic instrument for psychological assessments in custody, juvenile dependency, personal injury, and work related matters. In addition to completing the SAGASTM, clients also fill out a descriptive and Likert-scaled self-rating form related to their perceptions of their personality strengths, liabilities and characteristics, as well as their general feeling states (CLICK HERE to view the form). The integration of this data with the SAGASTM scale scores provides a rich portrait of the individual's overt self-perceptions and more covert aspects of the person. The self-rating form also can be particularly useful in personality research, both through correlating the ratings and self-ascribed personality characteristics with various SAGASTM scales, as well as with other measures a researcher may want to use. After your client completes the SAGASTM and it is analyzed, we will submit a report to you by way of email. This will usually be within 24 hours. For a sample report, please CLICK HERE. The cost to you for this service is $25. Professionals typically charge their client between $50-$100 for a SAGASTM, depending on the amount of time necessary to review the report and integrate it with other findings. To register for assessment services, please CLICK HERE. Research PTSITM is deeply committed to the further understanding of psychological life. To this end, we are inviting the use of the SAGASTM to researchers and graduate students in the social sciences. This assessment instrument is particularly suited for clinical outcome studies and research related to various dimensions and correlates of the "inner world" of the person. We will score submissions at no charge (or at a nominal rate if there is available funding) and provide the results to the researcher. As our data base grows, we will make it available for further research. In this way, we hope to become a world-wide resource for the study of apperceptive material. To register for research services, please CLICK HERE. General Content Analysis PTSITM will analyse any text of a minimum 100 words utilizing the currently available PCAD, Intimacy Motivation, Perception of Men/Women and Locus of Control scales. The kinds of texts analysed have varied from clinician-administered apperception tests, clients' dreams, journal material, and suicide notes, to literary works, historical documents, and political debates. Text must be submitted by way of email, which can include attached file. The cost of service is $25 per ten pages, though lower per-page rates can be arranged for five or less pages, or more than twenty pages of text. To submit material for content analysis, please CLICK HERE. Development of New Content Analysis Scales PTSITM also will develop new content analysis scales to the specifications of the requesting party. Cost depends on the nature and size of the task. Please contact us through e-mail or phone (858-459-5557) for more information. Do know that PTSITM is in the the process of norming the Parent Administered Child Test (the PACTTM), which is the first apperception test that can be given directly by parents, and done so over the Internet. The test also can be administered by mental health professionals, teachers and, in fact, most anyone working with children and adolescents. Thus, it is also known as the Multi Person Admistered Child Test, or the MPACTTM. To view this test, please CLICK HERE. Since we are continually developing new scales and areas of study, we would very much welcome your comments and suggestions. Addition of New Tests We are very interested in adding to our services other empirically based tests that lend themselves to being administered over the Internet. Thus, please contact us if you know of or have such a test. In all of the above ways, PTSITM is part of the burgeoning area of "tele-psychological services." Such services are being encouraged at the legislative level through mandating insurance companies to pay for these services. Indeed, the unprecedented clinical and research possibilities of utilizing the SAGASTM and other psychological assessment instruments by way of the Internet are truly enormous on a world-wide level. We welcome your participation. Copyright ©1999 Psychological Testing Services International. All rights reserved.