Clinical Psychology

Dahlstrom, Welsh, and Dahlstrom (1972, 1975)
noted 450 MMPI supplementary scales, ranging
from Dominance and Suspiciousness to Success in
Basketball! For the MMPI-2, 20 individual supple-
mentary scales have been developed so far. A few
examples are Anxiety, Repression, Ego Strength,
Dominance, and Social Responsibility.

A Summary Evaluation of the MMPI and MMPI-2

Screening. Many clinicians are attracted to the
MMPI-2 because of its screening capabilities.
When information about the severity of a patient’s
problems is needed, and when the clinician must
generate hypotheses about a patient’s diagnostic
status, the MMPI-2 can be a valuable asset. There-
fore, when groups of patients are being screened, it
can be both useful and efficient as an aid to mental
disorder diagnosis or as a hypothesis generator. The

MMPI-2, however, is quite long. For many screen-

ing purposes, such a time-intensive self-report

inventory may be unnecessary. For example, if a

clinician simply wants to screen new clients for

depression, a much shorter inventory than the

MMPI-2 might be more desirable. The MMPI-2

items measure a wide range of symptoms, only a

minority of which are related to depression. There-

fore, the comprehensiveness of the MMPI-2 may

be both a strength and a weakness.

The Question of Personality Traits. The MMPI-2

isatheoretical(Butcher, 1995c; Helmes & Reddon,

1993). For clinicians who are psychodynamically ori-

ented or who seek an understanding of their patients

through the subtle interplay of general personality

trait characteristics and situational determinants, the

MMPI-2 may not be the instrument of choice. The

MMPI-2 is primarily a measure of various symptoms

of psychopathology. Although the features tapped

F I G U R E 8-1 The Case of Ed: A pretreatment MMPI-2 clinical profile.

PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT 229