The Millon Inventories: Clinical and Personality Assessment
edited by Theodore Millon
ISBN: 0471116858
PREFACE: The MCMI and its sister inventories originated as a defensive act, a
shield against the proliferation of potentially misconceived or poorly designed
efforts on the part of well-meaning others to "operationalize" concepts I had
proposed in an earlier publication. Rather than sit back and enjoy the
dissemination of my ideas, I began to see this burgeoning of divergent
instrument development, not only as uncontrolled, and possibly misguided, but as
a process ultimately endangering the very theoretical notions they were designed
to strengthen.
To establish a measure of instrumental uniformity for future investigators,
as well as to assure at least a modicum of psychometric quality among tools that
ostensibly reflected the theory's constructs, I was prompted (perhaps "driven"
is a more accurate word) to consider undertaking the test-construction task
myself. At that time, in early 1971, I fortunately was directing a research
supervision group composed of psychologists- and psychiatrists-in-training
during their internship and residency periods. All of them had read my 1969
Modern Psychopathology text, and found my suggestion that we work together to
develop instruments to identify and quantify the text's novel personality
constructs to be both worthy and challenging.
Naively, we assumed that the construction task could be completed in about 18
months, a time period that would allow several members of the research group to
participate on a continuing basis. Despite the fact that we "postponed"
developing a structured interview schedule after an initial effort, the "more
limited" task of constructing a self-report inventory took almost 7 years to
complete. The framework and preliminary item selections of the inventory were
well underway by the end of the first full year of our work; it was described
briefly in a book I cowrote in 1972 entitled Research Methods in
Psychopathology. The initial forms of the clinical instrument were entitled the
Millon-Illinois Self-Report Inventory.
Psychodiagnostic procedures in the past contained more than their share of
mystique. Not only were assessments often an exercise in oracular craft and
intuitive artistry, but they typically were clothed in obscure and esoteric
jargon. A change in the character of personality theory and assessment began to
brew in the late 1960s. Slow though these advances progressed, there were clear
signs that new ideas would soon emerge. Projective techniques such as the
Rorschach began to be analyzed quantitatively and were increasingly anchored to
the empirical domain. The so-called objective inventories, such as the MMPI,
were being interpreted increasingly in terms of configural profiles. No longer
approached as sets of separate scales, formerly segmented instruments were
increasingly analyzed as holistic integrations that possessed clinical
significance only as gestalt composites. In addition, the former insistence that
diagnostic interpretation be "objective," that is, anchored solely to empirical
correlates, gave way to clinical syntheses, including the "dynamics" of the
previously maligned projectives. Although part-function instruments, oriented
toward one expressive form of pathology or another (for example, Beck Depression
Inventory) are still popular, the newest tools moved increasingly toward
composite structures, (that is, "whole" personalities). These personality
formulations were not conceived of as random sets or discrete attributes or
factors that must be individually deduced and then pieced together, but as
integrated configurations from the start. Hence, we have seen the development of
various tools explicitly designed to diagnose, for example, the "borderline"
personality. The MCMI represents this trend in holistic personality measures,
going one step beyond most techniques by including all of the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual (DSM) personality disorders in a single inventory. Holism is
not limited to inventories alone. New structured interview schedules and
clinical rating scales have been developed to provide another rich source of
data. Not to be overlooked is the sound psychometric manner in which most of
these newer tools have been constructed, thereby wedding the empirical and
quantitative features that were the major strength of the structured objective
inventories with the dynamic and integrative qualities that characterized the
more intuitive projective techniques.
We should also not overlook the very special status assigned to the
personality disorders in the DSM. With the third edition of this official
classification in 1980, personality not only gained a place of consequence among
syndromal categories but became central to its multiaxial schema. The logic for
assigning personality its own special status was more than a matter of
differentiating syndromes of a more acute and dramatic nature from those of a
longstanding and prosaic character. More relevant to this partitioning decision
was the assertion that personality (Axis II) serves usefully as a dynamic
substrate from which clinicians can better grasp the significance and meaning of
their patient's transient and florid disorders (Axis I). In the DSM, then,
personality disorders not only attained a nosological status of prominence in
their own right but were assigned a contextual role that made them fundamental
to the understanding and interpretation of all other psychopathologies.
As is evident by the variety of "Millon" instruments reported in this book, I
have judged it best to opt in favor of focusing an inventory on target rather
than broad-based populations; hence, the MCMI is oriented toward matters of
import among adult mental health patients, the MACI focuses on adolescent
clinical populations, the MBHI and the forth-coming MBMC focus on those whose
primary ailments are of a medical or physical nature, and the recently developed
MIPS (Millon Index of Personality Styles) addresses traits among nonclinical or
so-called normal adults (as can be seen, I have chosen the term "style" for
persons who do not evince discernible psychic pathology).
I must admit, much to both my surprise and pleasure, that the defensively
constructed MCMI, as well as its sister inventories, quickly matched in
acceptance and clinical usage the theory upon which they were based. Only the
MMPI and Rorschach continue to supersede the Millon Inventories as the most used
and published of clinically oriented tests. In the past decade, numerous
clinicians and researchers have begun to publish books (six at last count) and
articles (approximately a thousand) evaluating the Millon instruments. The
present volume is, however, the first book organized and edited by the
inventories' primary author.
Perhaps the greatest value to this text's readers will be an implicit one,
namely, the growing heuristic fertility of the Millon inventories. These
inventories are more than an-other "objective" tool in the diagnostician's
assessment kit. They provide clinicians with a theoretical foundation for
mastering the realm of clinical and personality pathology, a means for
understanding the principles that underlie their patient's functional and
dysfunctional behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. Moreover, the openness of the
theory not only illuminates the patient's personal life but encourages the
clinician to deduce and uncover insights beyond those on which the inventories
interpretive reports have been grounded.
Finally, we believe this book will provide professors of psychological
assessment courses a comprehensive text for teaching the foundations,
development, and applications of the several Millon inventories.
Theodore Millon
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Part I. INTRODUCTION
1. The Place of Assessment in Clinical Science - by Theodore Millon and
Roger D Davis
Part II. THE MILLON CLINICAL MULTIAXIAL INVENTORY (MCMI)
2. History, Theory, and Validation of the MCMI by Theodore Millon and
Carrie M. Millon
3. Interpretation of the MCMI-III by Eric J. Van Denburg and James P. Choca
4. MCMI Assessment: An Integrative Case Study by Roger D. Davis and
Theodore Millon
5. Clinical Integration of the MCMI-III and the Comprehensive System
Rorschach by Darwin Dorr
6. Integrating the MCMI and the MMPI by Michael H. Antoni
7. Application of the Millon Inventories in Forensic Psychology by Frank J
Dyer
8. Using the MCMI in Correctional Settings by Carrie M. Millon and Theodore
Millon
9. Using the MCMI in Neuropsychological Evaluations by Sally L. Kolitz-Russell
and Elbert W. Russell
10. MCMI Applications in Substance Abuse by Patrick M. Flynn and Robert C.
McMahon
11. The MCMIs and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder by Lee Hyer, Jeffrey
Brandsma, and Stephanie Boyd
12. The MCMI as a Treatment Planning Tool by Paul Retzlaff
13. Using the MCMI in Treating Couples by Rodney Nurse
14. The Millon Inventories: Sociocultural Considerations by Luis A. Escovar
15. Issues and Procedures in MCMI Translations by Hedwig V. Sloore and Jan
L. Derksen
16. A Selected Review of the MCMI Empirical Literature by Robert J. Craig
17. Validation of the MCMI-III by Roger D. Davis, Andrew Wenger, and
Alexandra Guzman
Part III. THE MACI, MBHI, MBMC, AND MPDC
18. The MACI: Composition and Clinical Applications by Joseph T. McCann
19. The MBHI: Composition and Clinical Applications by George S. Everly,
Jr., and Eileen C. Newman
20. The Role of Psychological Assessment in Health Care: The MBHI, MBMC,
and Beyond by Michael H. Antoni, Carrie M. Millon, and Theodore Millon
21. The MPDC: Composition and Clinical Applications by Robert F. Tringone
Part IV. THE PACL AND MIPS
22. The PACL: Gauging Normal Personality Styles by Stephen Strack
23. The MIPS: Gauging the Dimensions of Normality by Lawrence G. Weiss
Part V. Epilogue
24. The Millon Inventories: Present and Future Directions by Roger D. Davis
and Theodore Millon
 
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