Essentials of MCMI-IV Assessment

Seth D. Grossman, Blaise Amendolace

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781119236443
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychologie
• Subtopic: Forschung & Methodik in der Psychologie

Quickly acquire the knowledge and skills you need to administer, score, and interpret the MCMI ® -IV

Essentials of MCMI ® -IV Assessment is the definitive source of up-to-date, practical information for clinicians and students using the MCMI ® -IV inventory. Step-by-step guidelines walk you through the process of administering the assessment, with a profile and demonstration of the clinical process from administration to treatment. Expert discussion helps inform higher-quality therapeutic interventions. The link between assessment and intervention is emphasized throughout, as well as coverage of relevant populations and clinical applications, to provide a well-rounded understanding while illuminating the uses of the MCMI ® -IV.

This book provides instruction and clarification from the foremost experts to help you achieve better outcomes for your clients.

• Follow step-by-step guidelines for administering the MCMI ® -IV
• Recognize the connection between data and intervention
• Improve quality and accuracy of therapeutic applications
• Gain a more practical understanding of the MCMI ® -IV assessment process

The MCMI ® -IV assesses a wide range of information related to a client's personality, emotional adjustment, test-taking approach, and other critical information. Interpretation and reporting serve as a basis from which therapeutic interventions are designed, so quality and accuracy is of utmost importance every step of the way. Essentials of MCMI ® -IV Assessment is the most authoritative, up-to-date resource in the field, and a must-have reference for anyone who uses the test.

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HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE MCMI® THROUGH MCMI®-IV

To fully understand and operationalize the application and range of the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory, Fourth Edition (MCMI-IV; Millon, Grossman, & Millon, 2015), it is useful to gain a working knowledge of its original intent and development in context with the time and challenges in the field of psychological assessment. This chapter will focus not only on the development of this most recent iteration of the instrument but also will highlight its evolution from its original form in context with advances in personality diagnosis, assessment, and intervention throughout the latter half of the 20th century.

The MCMI-IV is a 195-item self-report inventory designed to articulate complex personality patterns in context with clinical symptomology, noteworthy concerns, and test-taking attitude in order to maximize therapeutic plans. The current, fourth generation of the instrument traces its roots back to the early 1960s, when Theodore Millon, then an associate professor at Lehigh University, a private university in the northeast United States, began contextualizing the personality study and research he had conducted throughout the early years of his career (Millon, 2002). Examining the characterologic prototypes described in the classic psychoanalytic literature, Millon noted the superbly articulated characterizations of personality styles, but he lamented the lack of comprehensiveness and consistency across these different patterns. A self-described “inclusive behaviorist” in his early career (Millon, 1990), Millon began blending his empirical background with his interest in integrative theory to attempt to construct an explanatory framework for basic personality constellations. He felt that this could, at once, describe core motivations of individuals and also provide a system for classification of personality variables. The driving force of this exercise was to make the case for personality as the central concern for clinical psychology, owing to its influence on, and ability to modulate, clinical symptomology. The fruits of this labor, manifest in Millon’s (1969) Modern Psychopathology, set the stage not only for the first Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI; Millon, 1977) but also for the designation of personality on its own separate axis in the multiaxial systems of DSM-III through DSM-IV.

Millon’s (1969) original template, described as a “biosocial-learning theory,” mapped a continuum from adaptive to maladaptive personality patterns and specified several distinct motivating forces when, combined with one another, gave rise to a series of personality prototypes evident among adaptive and maladaptive individuals. These motivational orientations emphasized social engagement and adaptation to the environment, drawn as opposing ends of a continuum. Social engagement was seen as engaged versus disengaged, whereas the adaptation continuum was described as active versus passive (that is, whether to act on an environment in order to suit the individual or to accept what the environment provides and change aspects of the self to fit in). This schema, when examined for different possible combinations, manifested eight prototypal personalities which largely coincided with identified problematic personality trends as seen in the literature and in the official psychiatric diagnostic system (see Table 1.1). Millon’s framework garnered the attention of key figures from the DSM leadership in the 1970s, and he was recruited to its personality disorders work group in which many of his conceptualizations were ultimately translated to its empirically based diagnostic criteria of the DSM-III (American Psychiatric Association [APA], 1980).

Table 1.1 Millon’s Orig...