Normalizing the MMPI.

Abstract

Effective psychological services require recognition of a client's strengths as well as weaknesses. Personality tests such as the MMPI, however, focus attention upon the abnormal and deviant attributes of personality. Therefore, a psychologist should have an understanding of various adaptive behaviors that may be indicated by moderately elevated MMPI scale scores. Because most of the literature deals with the pathological ramifications of scale elevations, the authors developed a conceptual perspective of counterpart descriptors for each MMPI clinical scale. These descriptors are presented so that apparently contradictory sets of behaviors for elevated scores on any given scale can be viewed on a continuum from adaptive to maladaptive behavior. An armamentarium of MMPI personality traits should include positive as well as negative considerations to provide a fully comprehensive basis for the formulation of realistic assessments of human potentialities.