Contributions of Multimethod Personality Assessment in Indirect Evaluation.

Indirect assessment is a useful tool in forensic evaluation, especially in cases of threat assessment. To this end, we illustrated the ability to conceptualize a complicated case (i.e., Theodore John Kaczynski) using an indirect approach, with a particular emphasis upon dimensional frameworks of personality. Raters who were unrelated to Mr. Kaczynski's case and with expertise in relevant domains were asked to study information available in the public domain about Mr. Kaczynski and provide ratings using several assessment instruments. Our aim was not to provide a professional clinical opinion, but rather engage in scholarly discourse about the utility of instruments. Mr. Kaczynski was rated to demonstrate characteristics associated with lone actor terrorists. He showed an elevation on a measure of psychosis, and raters conceptualized trauma as an important aspect of his functioning. He demonstrated impairments in detachment and psychoticism (Criterion B of the AMPD) and interpersonal functioning (Criterion A of the AMPD). Clinical conceptualizations for Mr. Kaczynski emphasized schizotypal and paranoid personality disorders. This analysis of an infamous case about which considerable data are publicly available demonstrates the ease with which indirect and multimethod assessment can be applied and integrated in forensic assessment, using modern conceptualizations of personality pathology.

Professional Practice Guidelines for Personality Assessment.

The current paper conveys guidelines for personality assessment developed by a work group formed by the Society for Personality Assessment (SPA), which are intended to serve as an aid for best practices specific to personality assessment for professionals, and a source of information for consumers and policy makers. The guidelines were developed after a careful and systematic review of the literature on personality assessment and examination of practice patterns, and were refined through multiple rounds of input from stakeholders including members of SPA and other professionals routinely conducting personality assessment. The guidelines address the scope of personality assessment and current practice trends, minimum education and training qualifications, ethical practices, diversity considerations, assessment procedures, and appropriate applications. By following these guidelines and other established professional standards, psychologists can help ensure that they practice ethically, competently, with appropriate attention to diversity, and to the highest standards of the profession. These guidelines can function as a resource for educators and supervisors of personality assessment. Additionally, the guidelines will serve as a benchmark for best practices in personality assessment and, as such, represent a first step in what is hoped to be an evolution of ever improving personality assessment standards of practice.

The Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI): Treatment Scales and Interpersonal Characteristics in a Sample of Men Charged with or Convicted of a Sexual Offense.

An individual's interpersonal features are pertinent to treatment within clinical populations. The Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) contains two scales that assess the interpersonal features of warmth (WRM) and dominance (DOM), as well as two additional measures to assess to treatment prediction, process, and rejection (RXR; TPI). The current study examined associations between these PAI scales in a sample of 92 men who underwent comprehensive evaluations of sexual behavior after being charged with or convicted of a sexual offense. Analyses indicated that RXR was positively associated with WRM and DOM, TPI was negatively associated with WRM, and the two interpersonal scales of WRM and DOM were positively correlated with each other. A significant inverse relationship was found between the two treatment scales RXR and TPI indicating that motivation for treatment may have a limited relationship with the treatment process. WRM significantly predicted scores on the TPI, and both WRM and DOM predicted individual scores on RXR. Higher scores on positive impression management (PIM) were predictive of lower TPI and higher RXR, as individuals with higher stakes cases may score higher on PIM and underreport obstacles within treatment or be unwilling to accept the need for treatment. Overall, findings suggest that interpersonal characteristics identified by the PAI scales may be advantageous in approaching treatment within this population.

Likelihood of obtaining Structured Interview of Reported Symptoms (SIRS) and SIRS-2 elevations among forensic psychiatric inpatients with screening elevations on the Miller Forensic Assessment of Symptoms Test.

The Miller Forensic Assessment of Symptoms Test (M-FAST) was designed as a screening measure for feigned psychiatric symptoms. When M-FAST Total Scores are elevated (raw score ≥6), the test manual recommends follow-up with a more comprehensive measure of feigning, such as the widely used and researched Structured Interview of Reported Symptoms (SIRS) or the revised version of the test (SIRS-2). The purpose of the current study was to evaluate how often M-FAST screening elevations are associated with subsequent elevations on the SIRS or SIRS-2. The sample included archival data from 100 forensic psychiatric inpatients who obtained M-FAST Total Score elevations ≥6 during screening and were subsequently administered the SIRS (that was also rescored using SIRS-2 criteria). Among examinees who elevated the M-FAST over the recommended cutoff, 66.0% met standard SIRS feigning criteria, 42% met SIRS-2 criteria for feigning, and 81.0% obtained at least 1 SIRS/SIRS-2 elevation in the Probable Feigning range or higher. These results are consistent with the M-FAST manual guidelines, which support the use of the ≥6 M-FAST cutoff score to screen for potential feigning (but not as an independent marker of feigning). A higher M-FAST cutoff score of ≥16 was associated with subsequently meeting full SIRS criteria for feigning in 100.0% of protocols. Because the SIRS criteria were designed to have very low false positive rates, these findings indicate that more confident assertions about feigning can be made when elevations reach this level on the MFAST. (PsycINFO Database Record