Screening candidates for pathology before admitting them into a graduate program
for mental health professionals appears a responsible admissions criteria. We
use personal interviews with 3 different clinical faculty for our short list
applicants and look for interpersonal skills, maturity and a lack of personality
disorder pathology among other things.
Using a clinical measure may be problematic for screening applicants due to the
lack of validity data supporting the use of such measures for the purpose of
predicting success among mental health professionals. That said, if I were to
use a measure I would probably use the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) or
perhaps the CPI, and watch for any prominent elevations on clinical scales. The
PAI scales are more interpretable than the MMPI. Such elevations might lead to
further assessment during interview rather than exclusion based solely on test
scores.
Bob Hill
Psychology
Appalachian State Un.
Rick Froman wrote:
> Our graduate school is looking for an appropriate personality test to give
> to students in the counseling program to identify personality
> characteristics relevant to counseling. They are attempting to screen for
> people who may have a difficult time in a counseling placement. Do any of
> you use personality tests for a similar purpose in your graduate programs or
> know of a test that might be useful for this purpose. They had been using
> the MMPI but it wasn't working for them. Thanks for your help.
>
> Rick
>
> Dr. Richard L. Froman
> Psychology Department
> John Brown University
> Siloam Springs, AR 72761
> e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> http://www.jbu.edu/sbs/psych/froman.htm
