TPC-Journal-V6-Issue1

The Professional Counselor /Volume 6, Issue 1 52 soothing emotional reactivity, reducing obsessive thoughts) of excoriation disorder inform the diagnostic and assessment process. It is important that counselors have a thorough understanding of the DSM-5 criteria for excoriation disorder and understand that many clients with this disorder might hide physical markers and omit skin picking information unless asked directly (Grant & Odlaug, 2009). As such, counselors might use formal assessments, in addition to clinical judgment, in order to make an accurate diagnosis and best understand the client’s behaviors. Assessment A number of assessment tools can be used to assist in assessing, diagnosing and treating those who have excoriation disorder. Each measure can be utilized by counselors in developing a holistic conceptualization of the client and for engaging in differential diagnosis. Upon accurate diagnosis of excoriation disorder, assessment measures also can aid counselors in selecting appropriate treatment goals, interventions and modalities for each client, and they can be used to assess client behavior change. Keuthen et al. (2001b) constructed three skin picking scales that can be used to assess excoriation disorder and aid in the assessment and treatment process. The first measure, the Skin Picking Scale (SPS), can be used to measure the client’s self-reported severity of skin picking behaviors. This measure consists of six items that relate to the frequency of picking urges, intensity of picking urges, time spent engaging in skin picking behaviors, interference of the behaviors in functioning, avoidance behaviors and the overall distress associated with the excoriation-related behaviors. Each item is assessed on a 5-point scale of 0 (none) to 4 (extreme), resulting in a range of total scores between 0 and 24. The SPS demonstrated high internal consistency with adequate convergent validity (Keuthen et al., 2001a). Pragmatically, this measure can be used to distinguish self-injurious skin picking from non-self-injurious skin picking. As treatment gains are made, corresponding scores should decrease. The second measure is the Skin Picking Impact Scale (SPIS). The SPIS is a self-report questionnaire designed to assess the impacts or consequences of repetitive skin picking (e.g., negative self- evaluation, social interference; Keuthen et al., 2001a). Each of the scale’s 10 items are rated on a 6-point scale from 0 (none) to 5 (severe), resulting in a total score ranging from 0 to 50. The SPIS has high internal consistency (Keuthen et al., 2001a; Snorrason et al., 2013), and scores appear to correlate with duration of picking, satisfaction of picking and shame associated with picking. The third measure is the Skin Picking Impact Scale-Shorter Version (SPIS-S). The SPIS-S is the shorter version of the SPIS consisting of only a 4-question scale (Snorrason et al., 2013). The SPIS and the SPIS-S have a similar factor structure and both have high internal consistency. These measures assess the impacts of picking behaviors on social life, perceived embarrassment associated with picking behaviors, consequences of picking behaviors and perception of attractiveness (Snorrason et al., 2013). The ultimate difference between the two scales is the brevity of the shorter version measure as compared to 10 items on the other measure. Snorrason and associates (2013) found acceptable discriminant and convergent validity for the SPIS and the SPIS-S; both measures may be considered for clinical use. The Milwaukee Inventory for the Dimensions of Adult Skin Picking (MIDAS) is another skin picking assessment measure (Walther, Flessner, Conelea, & Woods, 2009). The MIDAS consists of 21 items and highlights the degree of focused picking (e.g., body sensations, reaction to negative emotions) and automatic picking behaviors (e.g., unaware of skin picking behaviors, concentrating on another activity, unintentional picking; Walther et al., 2009). Within the measure, each item is rated on a 5-point scale (i.e., 1–5; not true of my skin picking to always true for my skin picking), and