The paper briefly describes assessment practices in terms of their theoretical principles. The practices include: (a) the client is an informed participant even during the assessment process; (b) the referral is situated in terms of actual events; (c) life events are primary data, and test scores are secondary or derived data; (d) interpretation is hermenuetic rather than reductive; (e) the assessment process is interventional as well as evaluative; (f) test activity serves as a lived metaphor for structurally similar past events; (g) comportment through tests provides access to process as well as outcome; (h) representation of actual events is a major means of representational description; and (i) the explanatory system is that of structural description rather than reduction. (Author)