Twoblock wrote on Aug 20^th, 2009 at 10:23pm:


based on?

This is incorrect. I can and have argued that tests results were not valid based on evidence of exaggeration of symptomatology. My testimony is/was considered valid, both legally and scientifically. Opinions on response bias is legally permissable under frye and daubert standards of evidence admissability, and backed up scientifically by empirical research on the use of the MMPI in clinical and forensic samples. Statistics are your friend....my friend.

NO IT ISN'T INCORRECT. If you, like polygraphers, were not so eager to defend your profession, you would take time to understand statements. I said "IF" the court orders. I didn't say they did or didn't. Now did I????

I personally know of two cases ( that refutes your statement) where the court ordered them into a state psych hospital for eval. and the judge was fully aware that MMPI (and other tests) were standard proceedure. I forget now the other two test that he specifically mentioned.

You should check with the legal profession before spouting disinformation.

Your beautiful prose would be so much more profound were it all true.

Most department's selection processes are in the stone age, the psychologists they hire usually the lowest bidder. Police departments have an incredibly bad habit of dissecting their applicants into so much useless data and then judging the useless data.

Why is domestic abuse higher among those in the military and law enforcement? Why is alcohol abuse higher among those in the military and law enforcement? I attribute both to bad screening - 'job stress' isn't an excuse to beat your family, or drink incessantly.
(And I'm former military so save the 'bleeding heart liberal'  speech.)
I know the job is stressful, and I'm not trying to put down what you do - I want to do it, too!

Dumb questions on old psychological assessments and investigators who use 'lie detection' in lieu of actual background investigative work along with psychologists who have no clinical practice add up to a bad way to screen people, and after a department or two, this bad way to screen people encourages otherwise honest applicants to start lying.

Law enforcement SHOULD be a sacred trust. If/when their selection processes catch up to the 20th century, it might be.

And from the slippery ethical slope you're on, you dare pontificate about "Sacred Trusts?"

I would like to know if anyone has been forced to take the MMPI-2 test for a custody evaluation.  If so what was the recommendation either way.  Im not nervous about taking the test myself, but I want to understand why they ask certain questions?  Some of the 75 questions that were posted seem ridiculous!  Like My hands and feet are usually warm enough?  What will that question prove?  Please give me some insight on why certain questions are asked, and what do they mean if answered yes or no?  Or where I can go to get a book that will help me understand what the meaning behind these questions are.

understand

Now that you have been thoroughly educated and you completely understand the second paragraph of psychobabble, you can now ace the test. What she is actually saying is that the interpretation of your answers is based on a specific group's data from a specific group of subjects and therefore biased by the testing group. If you refuse to take the test they will use that against you. If you take the test and it doesn't meet the requirement of the tester, they will use that against you. The test is useless.
You can take the test three times with three different testers and get three different analysis.

psych1 wrote on Dec 6^th, 2009 at 12:54am:

The MMPI-2 is an abomination and I don't say that lightly. I've examined all 567 questions in detail including the underlying code used for scoring. It is quite easy to manipulate and as most of the methodology used for scoring is already in the public domain, no amount of DMCA take-downs will prevent a determined applicant from accessing its content.  

What we have here is an 19th century tool up against 21st century technology. It is an insult to any intelligent person to be asked to answer a series of thinly disguised questions, which, on the face of it, could destroy his or her career for life. 

This test does not play fair. One or two slips of the pen and you can be branded in an instant. IMHO anyone who attempts to manipulate it or usurp its functionality by getting into the coding is perfectly within their rights to do so. Psych 1 will no doubt disagree with that analysis. 

So what is the alternative? The reality is, there is no alternative. Psychological testing is immutable and therefore inadequate and totally biased against the applicant. 

There are too many variables. Someone smack bang in the middle of a reactive depression could raise their score through the roof on the Pd or ASP T scales but might yield a perfectly normative result several months later.

As for Faking (Good) and Faking (Bad) I've never read such unmitigated S**t in all my life. This is the MMPI's get out of Jail card. I won't go into the individual questions themselves because this is not what this post is about, but puhleezz, spare me the agony of having to explain myself. 

The bottom line is, there is a lot of very good airline staff, correctional officers and parents who have been trashed by this outrageous test and the sooner the better it is binned the better for us all.

psych1 wrote on Dec 30^th, 2009 at 8:47pm:


There are several key questions in the MMPI-2 which are loaded and re-worded in many instances, all of which have the potential to deliver a false diagnostic no matter how you interpret the final result. Your interpretations - with respect - are predicated on the interviewee answering truthfully or not as the case may be and this is my main point of contention.

The MMPI-2, in its current form, does not have sufficient safeguards built-in to mitigate against a reasonably educated attempt to deliver a positive or normative result.

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I am all too familiar with the number of scales but as I said earlier the interpretation is only as good as the information you receive and that includes history taking. People will ideally want a favourable result. That's a given. How they achieve that is open to debate and even corroboration is not to be relied upon should we doubt them and especially in family law studies.


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This is a generalised statement which presumably has been cushioned so as not to be direct. However I think it has already been answered above.

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Well of course it's bad! Any analysis with so many variables cannot be trusted or relied upon. And especially in criminal and family law cases where there is so much at stake! 

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It certainly does no such thing! Let's face it, we're talking about a multiple series of questions that require a certain degree of literacy and self-awareness on the part of the subject taking the test. Add in some of the variables discussed earlier and this quickly becomes an exercise in futility. And please don't suggest history taking as an adjunct! I have observed perfectly capable interviewees who are able to conduct themselves verbally but put a pen in their hand and they become bumbling basket cases. Exam pressure, performance pressure, the desire to please, all of these internal factors can dramatically influence results.

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Correct! And we are also adaptive or mal-adaptive as the case may be when faced with an interrogative test that purports to make a judgement that not even the Lord himself would attempt.


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Counsellor, you've taken 1 question off a series in isolation and formed an opinion on that basis; what about these? [26,35,66,81,84,104,105,110,123,227,240,248,250,254,269,283,284,374,412,418,419]. 

Numbers aside, the harsh reality is, most applicants do not have the luxury of repeating this test. This is a one-hit wonder for many of them and it is prohibitively expensive for most.

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And this is why it should be banned without hestitation. The best we have is simply not good enough and especially when people's lives can be turned upside down by a series of heavily weighted questions.

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Well of course there isn't. Open transparency and the inherent limitations of these tests is hardly a topic for scientific debate and admission of guilt. The litigation that would ensue and the resultant cost of premiums would make it impossible for clinicians to operate. What we have instead is a protectionist attitude towards psychometric testing that is akin to the official states secret act. Let's face it, if there were serious question marks over the methodology used and the construct validity of the MMPI the judicial system would be swamped with appeals. So there is a lot at stake here including commercial interests.


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That, with respect, is an understatement! But tough on who!?!


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They are few and far between. In the absence of a skilled clinician your fate can just as easily rest in the hands of a spotty faced Phd with about as much clinical experience as a box of fairies.