Personality Assessment and Counseling Psychology

This article examines the place of personality assessment in counseling psychology. Three areas are considered: (a) the types of tests counseling psychologists use, (b) the perspective counseling psychologists apply to the use of tests, and (c) projective techniques and counseling psychology. Each area is examined, and the issues it raises for counseling psychology are presented. Some conclusions about personality assessment practices in counseling psychology are made, and several directions for future training are identified.     

Personality Assessment and Native Americans

Personality assessment services for Native Americans have been culturally inappropriate and historically underutilized as a consequence. A framework for personality assessment is presented including components of relevant cultural knowledge, assessment techniques, assessor characteristics, and relationship style. Emic and etic approaches are described as serving different assessment functions. Acculturation measures and awareness of acculturation effects on different instruments provide temporary palliatives. A biopsychosocial model for service-delivery with linkages to family, tribal, county, state, and federal resources would be desirable and potentially effective. Ameliorations in techniques and service-delivery cannot substitute for genuine professional commitment to recruitment and training of indigenous assessment service-providers.     

The Structured Nonverbal Assessment of Personality

This article describes the development of a structured nonverbal measure of personality based on Murray's (1938) system of needs. The items of the Nonverbal Personality Questionnaire consist of line drawings of a central figure performing trait-relevant behaviors in specific situations; respondents are asked to indicate the likelihood of engaging in similar behaviors. The nonverbal form was administered to three Canadian samples of respondents and one Finnish sample. Reliability and validity data for the initial item pool and for a revised form are reported. The utility of the nonverbal inventory for cross-cultural and theoretical work in personality is discussed.     

An Actuarial-Experimental Model of Personality Assessment

A proposal has been made for a new, more powerful approach to personality assessment. The model is an integration of the characteristics of the actuarial principles of test construction with the experimental method. The experimental method should prove to be effective in controlling the error variance arising out of the accidental influences on the responses, and the actuarial paradigm should reduce the error stemming from both a possible low construct validity and the subjectivity of the clinician's judgment. The resultant increase in the clinician's power to differentiate between responses indicative of enduring traits and those which are the outcome of accidental influences should thus help in breaking the impasse currently restricting the usefulness of projective techniques.     

Developments in Research in Personality Assessment

Progress in personality research requires an adequate data analysis link between concepts of what people are like and observations of how they are likely to behave. Advances in computer technology have strengthened this link but also have made it necessary for investigators to be wary of lack of selectivity and trivialization in their research designs.     

Society for Personality Assessment 1971 Program

The aim was to study the validity of 2 personality instruments, the Health-Relevant Personality Inventory (HP5i) and the Junior Temperament and Character Inventory (JTCI), among adolescents with a substance use problem. Clinical interviews were completed with 180 adolescents and followed up after 12 months. Discriminant validity was demonstrated in the lack of correlation to intelligence in both instruments’ scales. Two findings were in support of convergent validity: Negative affectivity (HP5i) and harm avoidance (JTCI) were correlated to internalizing symptoms, and impulsivity (HP5i) and novelty seeking (JTCI) were correlated to externalizing symptoms. The predictive validity of JTCI was partly supported. When psychiatric symptoms at baseline were controlled for, cooperativeness predicted conduct disorder after 12 months. Summarizing, both instruments can be used in adolescent clinical samples to tailor treatment efforts, although some scales need further investigation. It is important to include personality assessment when evaluating psychiatric problems in adolescents.     

An Introductory Lecture on Personality Assessment

The role of personality assessment is minimized in many introductory psychology presentations for a variety of reasons. Personality assessment is an area of great breadth and is understandably formidable to those whose training has been outside this area of specialization.

The following lecture was designed to digest at least some parts of the area of personality assessment in as non-technical language as possible for use of instructors introducing its basic concepts.     

Sidney Blatt's Contributions to Personality Assessment

Over a long, distinguished career, Sidney Blatt contributed to theory and research in personality development, personality assessment, and psychotherapy. Best known for his 2-configurations model of personality and author or co-author of more than 250 articles and 18 books and monographs, Blatt was also a master clinician, a psychoanalyst who was awarded the 1989 Bruno J. Klopfer Award by the Society for Personality Assessment (SPA) for his contributions to both self-report and performance-based assessment. He was also the president of SPA from 1984 to 1986. This special series contains papers by writers who participated in all aspects of Blatt's contributions to personality assessment, both self-report and performance-based. Topics covered include Blatt's 2-configurations model of personality, development, and psychopathology; boundary disturbance and psychosis in performance-based assessment; the interaction of gender and personality on narrative assessments; and the Object Relations Inventory and differentiation relatedness, especially as these relate to therapeutic outcome.     

The Analysis of Consistency in Personality Assessment

ABSTRACT In recent years psychologists have treated not only the mean (or sum) but also the variability of a person's item scores on multi-item scales as significant individual attributes Variability measures and comparable statistics, interpreted as indicators of (in)consistency, have been used as a basis for rejecting test results or trait constructs In cognitive assessment the concern has been with test results, in personality assessment the emphasis has been primarily on traits and "traitedness" Some of the assessment procedures are described and discussed For personality assessment the main conclusions are ( a ) the use of intra-individual variability measures for identifying invalid test data could be explored and exploited more, ( b ) intra-individual variability is for many reasons to be considered a poor indicator of low traitedness rather than its hallmark, and ( c ) traitedness itself is a promising concept and certain alternative approaches to traitedness assessment seem promising and integrative     

Inpatient Therapeutic Assessment With Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Growing evidence supporting the effectiveness of Collaborative/Therapeutic Assessment (C/TA) has led clinicians and researchers to apply C/TA to a variety of clinical populations and treatment settings. This case example presents a C/TA inpatient adaptation illustrated with narcissistic personality disorder. After a brief overview of salient concepts, I provide a detailed account of the clinical interview, test interpretation paired with diagnostic considerations specific to narcissism, planned intervention, and discussion of assessment results. Throughout the case study, I attempt to demonstrate defining features of C/TA, inpatient adaptations, and clinical techniques that encourage meaningful engagement with a “hard to reach” personality.