North Star Conversations Transcript: The Importance of “I Don’t Know”—Lisa Novak, Psy.D.
Lisa Novak reflects on the value of clinical humility in neuropsychological testing, especially when the data is inconclusive. She describes how acknowledging uncertainty can actually foster trust and clarity, as long as families are supported with specific next steps.
Brandon Gimbel:
In my belief, there's nothing more honest and containing than saying, "I don't know."
Lisa Novak:
Sometimes we don't have a definitive answer. I want to own that too. And that's really hard for us. And I would say that's been a point of professional growth for myself and for our team. We talk a lot about these kinds of things that it's okay to say to a family, "this we can see really clearly. We're also kind of seeing bits and pieces of this other thing, but until we clear what we know is happening over here, we won't be able to say for sure whether this other thing is happening too." And it's difficult to know that a family has put all of the time and money and investment into doing an eval and we are in part coming back and saying, "I don't know," but we're never leaving them without very specific recommendations of this is how we're gonna tease that apart later. And I think for a long time, we were very afraid to do that, but families really appreciate that is what we have found. It's just an honest way of going like, yeah, this is hard.