Issues in the Personality Assessment of Lower-Class Patients

The recent national concerns about the poor and uneducated members of our society brings to the forefront the psychological treatment of the lower class. For many years, in state hospitals and mental hygiene clinics and now in community mental health centers, psychologists have been called upon for personality assessment of lower-class patients. The results of various studies indicate rather conclusively that lower-class people, for a variety of reasons, are much more likely to be assessed less favorably than members of the middle class. This paper is an attempt to review some factors in assessing the lower class patient so that the clinician can face these issues more clearly in his psychological assessment.