PTSD Assessment
When the Stakes Are High, Accuracy Matters
Not all trauma is visible. And not every diagnosis of PTSD is accurate. Whether you’re a physician, attorney, employer, or individual seeking clarity, one question matters.
Is this truly PTSD, or something else that looks like it?
The answer requires more than a checklist. It requires a rigorous, clinically defensible evaluation.
At Gallant Psychological and Forensic Services, we conduct comprehensive PTSD assessments using gold-standard measures built to produce clear, credible, and reliable conclusions.
The Problem with Most PTSD Evaluations
PTSD is one of the most over- and under-diagnosed conditions in mental health. Symptoms overlap with anxiety, depression, burnout, adjustment disorders, substance use, and grief.
Without a structured, clinician-administered assessment, it’s easy to misdiagnose PTSD, miss it entirely, or attribute symptoms to the wrong cause. That’s where a gold-standard evaluation becomes essential.
The Gold Standard: CAPS-5 + LEC-5 Extended
Every PTSD assessment we conduct uses two instruments recognized as the field’s gold standard.
CAPS-5 (Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale for DSM-5) maps precisely onto DSM-5 PTSD criteria – the exact diagnostic framework used in clinical and legal settings. You receive clear diagnostic status, symptom presence, and severity ratings, along with a continuous severity score useful for treatment planning, progress tracking, and legal documentation. It is backed by high inter-rater reliability and strong convergent validity, which is why it consistently produces results that hold up under scrutiny.
LEC-5 Extended (Life Events Checklist, Extended Version) systematically reviews lifetime traumatic events and identifies the specific event or events most associated with current symptoms. It properly establishes Criterion A, a required element of any valid PTSD diagnosis – especially critical in legal, disability, and immigration cases where symptom attribution has to be documented and defensible.
Together, these instruments are clinician-administered in a structured interview with an experienced psychologist, not an online screening. That allows for probing, clinical judgment on symptom onset, duration, and intensity, careful rule-out of alternative diagnoses, and assessment of real-world functional impairment.
Standardized scoring ensures consistent interpretation across providers, systems, and cases, reducing subjectivity and increasing comparability. The result is a diagnosis with a severity rating attached – precise enough for treatment and defensible enough for court.
Who Your Evaluation Serves
- Medical and mental health professionals seeking diagnostic clarification or treatment planning for complex trauma presentations
- Legal and forensic referrers working on personal injury, disability, immigration (asylum, hardship, trauma documentation), and criminal or civil court matters
- Employers and institutions needing fitness-for-duty or workplace trauma assessments
- Individuals seeking confirmation, a second opinion, or clarity on symptoms that have not been clearly explained
What You Can Expect
Your evaluation includes a comprehensive clinical interview, administration of the CAPS-5 and LEC-5 Extended, review of relevant records when applicable, diagnostic clarification and differential analysis, and a functional impact assessment.
What You Receive
A comprehensive written report that includes a clear determination of whether PTSD is present, symptom severity and clinical interpretation, documentation of trauma exposure, differential diagnosis, and specific recommendations for next steps.
The report is built for use by physicians, attorneys, courts, employers, and insurance providers.
Your Investment
$225 per hour ($350 per hour for forensic evaluations). Average total: ~$5,400 (~$8,400 for forensic).
This reflects a specialized assessment process built for accuracy, credibility, and real-world application.
The Outcome You Can Expect
You walk away with:
- A clear, defensible answer
- Confidence in your diagnosis or case
- Documentation that holds weight
- A path forward based on evidence – not assumption
If you need clarity you can rely on, the next step is simple. Contact us today to discuss the referral question, the timeline, and whether a PTSD evaluation is appropriate.
It doesn't have to stay this way.
The tension at home can shift. The arguments can slow down. The silence can turn back into conversation.
With the right support, your family can learn new ways to listen, respond, and show up for one another.