Psychology 644.G (Psychological Assessment)

Introduction to MMPI-2 Administration, Scoring, and Interpretation

Fall Semester, 2005 (Second five weeks)

2:00 - 5:00 Wednesday

William B. Stiles, Instructor

            I've tried to design this module to show, by concrete case examples, the relations between MMPI-2 profiles and people. The module is organized around a series of exercises. Although we will have time to complete each of these exercises only once during these 5 weeks, most of them can be profitably repeated after the module is finished, so you can continue to learn more on your own.

Text:

                        Greene, R. L. (2000). The MMPI-2: An interpretive manual.(2nd ed.) Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Written Assignments:

            There will be four written assignments, one due in class each week except the first. In writing your reports, please indicate what about the test results or what other observations or information led you to your inferences. Come to class with a transparency of the profile (not the whole printout) for the case you studied, prepared to present and discuss your assignment.

             Please disguise client names and other identifying data in your written reports (these are class assignments, not clinic documents). If you are studying a client who is currently being seen, be sure you have the permission of the therapist and the supervisor. In writing and presenting, please try to make your reports brief and to the point. Focus on distinctive characteristics.

Assignment 1: Familiarization and Validity.

Take the MMPI or MMPI-2 three times, with the following mental sets:

(a) Honest. Be as nondefensive and accurate as you can.

(b) Fake good. Try to be an ideal, well adjusted person.

(c) Fake bad. Choose some pathological set (e.g., cry for help, depressed, paranoid, phobic, schizophrenic) and try to be consistent.

            Each time before you start, make notes describing the specific attitudes you intend to take, and after you finish, note how well you maintained those attitudes.

            Next read chapters 1‑3 in Greene. Then score the three tests. Please score two of your tests using the hand templates and one using computer scoring. The point of hand-scoring is to give you a concrete sense of how specific responses lead to scores and profiles. Test protocols for the other assignments will be computer scored.

            Write a report of your experience and the results, focusing on the consequences of the fake-good and fake-bad sets as they affect your tests' validity. You need not reveal your own profile if you prefer to keep it private.

Assignment 2: Test Your Client.

            Read chapters 4, 7, and 8 in Greene. Apply Greene's procedure for interpretation to the profile of a psychotherapy client‑‑preferably a client you have seen for some time and are familiar with. Alternatively, choose a client on whom there is a good deal of data available to you. In writing your report, comment on the accuracy or inaccuracy of inferences from the profile. Look for errors of omission as well as errors of commission.

Assignment 3: Blind Interpretation.

            Read chapters 5 and 6 in Greene, and familiarize yourself with the "cookbooks" described in chapter 7. Many of these are in the clinic workroom. Please do not remove them.

            Write a report on the profile of a psychotherapy client who is not known to you, but whose therapist is available for discussion of the case. Your analysis should be "blind," that is, based on only the profile (using any cookbooks or texts) plus basic demographic information (age, sex, education, occupation, marital status). Try to be as specific and concrete as you can. (That is, give the test a chance to be clearly confirmed or disconfirmed.) Show your written report to the therapist and discuss accuracies and inaccuracies. Try to get the therapist to describe specific behaviors or events in the client's life (in or out of therapy) that confirm or disconfirm each prediction. Append a summary of your discussion to the report.

Assignment 4: Guess-a-profile.

            Interview or observe a client for at least two sessions and review any other available information on the case. Be sure that an MMPI-2 is administered, but don't score it (or, if it has already been scored, don't look at it).

            Next, draw your best estimate of the client's profile. (Include any special scales that seem relevant.) In estimating, use any available cookbooks, discussions with others, other tests, and your own clinical understanding of the scales. Record your observations and reasoning for the decisions you make in drawing the profile. Also record the alternatives you considered and your level of confidence in each decision. Be sure to consider high point codes, validity scales and K‑corrections, configurations such as the Goldberg index and overall elevation, as well as the score on each clinical scale and supplementary scales with which you are familiar or which seem likely to be elevated.

            Then score the client's actual profile and compare it with your estimate. Discuss any discrepancies, making reference to your original reasons for your estimates. Include both profiles in your report.