I'm curious as to what people think about the ethics of screening for
pathology in potential mental health professionals. Would this constitute
a form of discrimination against such folks? Could it also be
counterproductive? (i.e., I've known people who were strongly motivated
to enter the field due to their own struggles in life; I would think
that such clinicians might have better empathy and clinical skills due to
having experienced the situation/condition themselves).
> 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
>
>
