Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ttidcc.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!ttidca!ttidcc!hollombe From: hollombe@ttidcc.UUCP (The Polymath) Newsgroups: net.singles Subject: Re: "The Invisible Partners" Message-ID: <608@ttidcc.UUCP> Date: Tue, 30-Jul-85 17:48:35 EDT Article-I.D.: ttidcc.608 Posted: Tue Jul 30 17:48:35 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 1-Aug-85 00:22:30 EDT References: <1528@utah-gr.UUCP> Reply-To: hollombe@ttidcc.UUCP (The Polymath) Organization: The Cat Factory Lines: 56 Summary: In article <1528@utah-gr.UUCP> haas@utah-gr.UUCP (Walt Haas) writes: > My wife >(now ex-) and I were in marriage counseling. At the start of counseling, >we took the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), which >is a widely-used personality measure. One of the measurements which comes >out of the MMPI is called the "masculine/feminine" score. To my surprise, >I came out extremely feminine (more that two standard deviations from the >mean)! Now, I am a heterosexual male with a strong interest in outdoor >sports, and no inclination at all to act effeminate. Why did the MMPI >label me "strongly feminine"? The counselor explained that, when the test >was invented shortly after World War II, "masculine" meant "interested >in hunting and fishing and not interested in the fine arts", whereas >"feminine" meant the reverse. Since my time in the mountains is spent in >technical rock climbing or wilderness skiing, not in hunting or fishing, >and since I like the fine arts, I'm feminine (according to the MMPI). (Grumble ... mutter ... damn marriage counselors ... grrr) The MMPI is probably one of the most commonly misunderstood and misused psychological instruments in existence. This is unfortunate as, in the hands of an expert, it can be an invaluable tool in psychological evaluation and therapy (I've seen an MMPI expert perform feats that would put any fortune teller to shame just by looking at a client's profile). It must be remembered, however, that it's only a tool and only one of many tools that should be used in a thorough evaluation protocol. The results must be placed in the much greater context of the person as a whole. Becoming an MMPI expert is non-trivial. The one I referred to above was a licensed Ph.D. psychologist with literally thousands of MMPI's worth of past experience to draw on. Unfortunately, obtaining a copy of the MMPI and it's scoring sheets and instructions _is_ relatively trivial. It is frequently used and abused by people who, in my opinion, have no business messing with it at all. This includes most marriage counselors who, despite what _they_ think, generally lack the training to make proper use of it. Part of the problem is that the scoring procedure for the MMPI is straight forward. So much so, in fact, that there are computer programs that will do it and even produce tentative analyses from the scores. These analyses frequently contain blatant contradictions laid side by side and are considered worthless by most experts. Untrained users of the test seldom do much better than the computers. Anyway, without going into further detail, the masculine/feminine scale is only one of a number of dimensions measured by the MMPI. Any one of them is virtually meaningless in isolation, regardless of score. They must be evaluated in the total context of the other scores and of the client as a whole person. -_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ The Polymath (aka: Jerry Hollombe) Citicorp TTI Common Sense is what tells you that a ten 3100 Ocean Park Blvd. pound weight falls ten times as fast as a Santa Monica, CA 90405 one pound weight. (213) 450-9111, ext. 2483 {philabs,randvax,trwrb,vortex}!ttidca!ttidcc!hollombe