Society for Personality Assessment,Incorporated Minutes of the Board of Trustees Meeting

When the record of both parents is considered together, we see a constellation in which the parental figures are each struggling to achieve gratification for strong dependency needs with the mother being the stronger and better integrated person but with exhibitionistic trends which may appear seductive to the child. Thus, for a male child who has the constellation of a weak dependent father and a somewhat disturbed exhibitionistic mother with unresolved dependency, the boy's identification as a male will have many vicissitudes. It is likely that, in many ways, he will be caught not only in the individual needs of these parents but in their difficult symbiotic relationship.     

Society for Personality Assessment,Incorporated Minutes of the Meeting of the Board of Trustees and Open Business Meeting

Summary: This study compared the MMPI profiles of two groups of child molesters, those with no prior arrests versus those with one or more prior arrests, in order to assess certain clinically derived inferences about these offenders. The sample consisted of 33 persons convicted of child molestation. The group with prior arrests showed more psychopathology than the group with no previous arrests.     

The Rorschach in the Context of Performance-Based Personality Assessment

Twenty-eight normal and 28 learning disabled children were given the Bender-Gestalt Test under instructional sets of low (standard) attention or high attention. Results failed to support the hypothesis that high attention instructions would lead to differential recall performance of the diagnostic groups. Normal children produced better designs during recall than learning disabled children regardless of instructional set. The evidence suggests that standard Bender instructions should not be altered in an attempt to elicit recall performance differences.     

Society for Personality Assessment,Incorporated Minutes of the Meeting of the Board of Trustees TAMPA FLORIDA March 21 and 23, 1974

Zubin, J., Eron, L. D. and Schumer, Florence. An Experimental Approach to Projective Techniques. New York Wiley and Sons, 1965. Reviewed by A. I. Rabin     

Prediction of differences in Rorschach protocols from the Personality Assessment System

The Personality Assessment System (PAS) is derived from certain subtest scores on any Wechsler test by rather simple calculations. It purports to measure, among other personality attributes, developmental changes in the Internalized-Externalized (I-E) dimension of personality, which is akin to the Introversion-Extroversion construct reflected by some Rorschach measures. PAS scores from a tightly defined sample of normal adults were contrasted with Experience Balance (EB) and Body-image (B) scores derived from Rorschach protocols by "blind" scorers. Significant relations were found between EB ratios produced via the Exner and Klopfer scoring systems and the primitive (early childhood) I-E scores from the PAS. The B scores produced by the Body Image scoring system were related to the basic (adolescent) I-E PAS scores. Although significant, the PAS-Rorschach correlations were relatively poor, in part because it was difficult to define the center of the internalization-externalization continuum in terms of the Rorschach protocols. It is, nevertheless, provocative that traditional scorings of the Rorschach responses of adults assess differences not only in this personality trait, but also in its development, as determined from scaled scores on Wechsler subtests.     

Assessment is not enough: the SPA should participate in constructing a comprehensive clinical science of personality. Society of Personality Assessment

Several proposals for a comprehensive clinical science of personality are enumerated in this Klopfer award article, namely (a) the need to integrate the study of personality within a framework of universal principles from which its theories can be derived, its categories organized, its assessment tools constructed, and its therapeutic interventions designed; (b) the wisdom of conceptualizing personality disorders, not as discrete "disease entities" but as psychological prototypes; (c) the shift from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Axis I to Axis II distinction to a 3-part complexity continuum demarcated by simple reactions, complex syndromes, and personality patterns; (d) the utility of expanding the range and comparability of routinely appraised clinical domains; and (e) the refining and differentiation of personality style and personality pathology subtypes.     

Profile of the Membership of the Society for Personality Assessment: Comparisons Between 1987 and 1990

In this study, we report the findings of a 1990 survey of the membership of the Society for Personality Assessment (SPA) and compare these results with a similar survey conducted in 1987. A four-page questionnaire was sent to approximately 1,800 SPA members; 900 surveys were returned, for a 50% response rate. Information was obtained on professional activities, occupational setting, theoretical orientation, and various demographic characteristics. Clinical practice was reported as the primary professional activity of the vast majority of SPA members; more than 40% of the 1990 sample indicated private practice as their primary job setting, compared to 35% in I987. A larger proportion of SPA members are also now working in private/clinical practice, medical centers, and outpatient community clinics than in 1987. Although a psychodynamic-psychoanalytic orientation continues to be the dominant theoretical perspective of SPA members, the proportion of members with a cognitive-behavioral orientation has increased substantially since 1987. We concluded that SPA members are now more involved in clinical practice, and that the SPA has become more ecumenical in theoretical perspective as the membership has more than doubled over the past 3 years.     

Profile of the membership of the Society for Personality Assessment: comparisons between 1987 and 1990

In this study, we report the findings of a 1990 survey of the membership of the Society for Personality Assessment (SPA) and compare these results with a similar survey conducted in 1987. A four-page questionnaire was sent to approximately 1,800 SPA members; 900 surveys were returned, for a 50% response rate. Information was obtained on professional activities, occupational setting, theoretical orientation, and various demographic characteristics. Clinical practice was reported as the primary professional activity of the vast majority of SPA members; more than 40% of the 1990 sample indicated private practice as their primary job setting, compared to 35% in I987. A larger proportion of SPA members are also now working in private/clinical practice, medical centers, and outpatient community clinics than in 1987. Although a psychodynamic-psychoanalytic orientation continues to be the dominant theoretical perspective of SPA members, the proportion of members with a cognitive-behavioral orientation has increased substantially since 1987. We concluded that SPA members are now more involved in clinical practice, and that the SPA has become more ecumenical in theoretical perspective as the membership has more than doubled over the past 3 years.     

Standards for education and training in psychological assessment position of the Society for Personality Assessment

The Society for Personality Assessment is a national and international professional organization devoted to research and practice in the field of psychological assessment. As such, it represents practitioners of assessment regardless of discipline or degree.     

The Validity of the Rorschach and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory: Results from Meta-Analyses

Results from meta-analyses have been widely cited to defend the validity of the Rorschach. However, the meta-analyses have been flawed. For example, one meta-analysis included results that were obtained by calculating correlations but not results that were obtained by conducting t tests or analyses of variance. When we reanalyzed the data from the most widely cited meta-analysis (Parker, Hanson, & Hunsley, 1988), we found that for confirmatory studies (also called convergent-validity studies), the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) explained 23% to 30% of the variance, whereas the Rorschach explained only 8% to 13% of the variance. These results indicate that the Rorschach is not as valid as the MMPI.     

Assessment of Alexithymia With the Rorschach Comprehensive System: The Rorschach Alexithymia Scale (RAS)

The Bene-Anthony Family Relations Test was administered to twenty normal, twenty-seven school disordered, and ten institutionalized emotionally disturbed preadolescent boys. Significant differences were obtained between and within groups. The more disturbed children tended to report more positive perceptions of family relationships, particularly their relationships with their oldest siblings. However, institutionalized children tended to perceive themselves more negatively than normal or school disordered children in the context of family relationships. Normal children, but not institutionalized children, tended to perceive their relationships with their oldest siblings as significantly more negative than their relationships to their parents. The data were interpreted as reflecting sibling rivalry and the operation of psychodynamic defenses.