The shonkiness of the MMPI-2

Vandel wrote:Minnesota has been kicking out a plethora of these indexing schedules. I've been subjected to a number of them. Been classed a high risk violent offender very likely to repeat by one of them and I spent 3 days crying over a mouse that accidentaly got its head caught in my recyling bin hole over how I could have prevented the death. My wife will attest I am gentle, and have a great respect for life, have disdain for violence... yet these tests admistered why going through a process that says I was a square peg, despite being round... they put my in a box regardless of whether I fit the data or not to back the success rate of the study. It's all about money, and what looks good on paper...

The questions are beyond vague. They can be interpreted incorrectly by the indiviudal taking the test, and they can be equally interpreted incorrectly by the person issuing the test. Minnesota is big on tests and very small on doing anything really credible. They have a corrupt justice system and have also issued such things as the duluth model of domestic violence. Yet everyone watches them and treats them like great innovators of knowledge and wisdom. These processes are dangerous and put innocent people at high risk for misclassification and people that should be classed not even in the radar. These tests repeated miss serial killers and the most dangerous people of our society. That right there should tell you they aren't worth the paper they're printed on.

These tests remind me of a polygraph test. Since those aren't even considered acceptable and many sets of questioning can be similar to what's found on those tests. Primarily the psycho/sociopathic index things like the tolam scale for violence and all sort of other hogwash the community thinks very highly of.

Scales are very often taken out of context by the person interpeting the scale. When asked how much pain you're in an emergency situation most poepl scream 10 to get help. When it might only really be a 4 or 5. They need the massive number of questions to judge truthfulness, and accuracy to repeat pattern response to similar question pools to rule out someone faking. It's a serious headgame is what it is. Since some of the questions despite being an effort to word something the same but appear different can actually have a different meaning.

IE: I have a phobia of lines... and a problem with showering. But I'm OCD with cleanliness.

When I was in the psyche ward the bathroom had a small tiles on the floor with lots of lines. When I shower I have to clean everything 4 times. I was at war with cleaning myself, and freaking out from having to stand on the lines on the floor to shower. I was at war with two states of controlling problems. Solution was to spread bedsheets on the tiles so I could wash while in the hospital. These tests cannot even remotely begin to take situations like this into consideration. The hospital and the tending psychiatrists and nurses didn't understand the problem. The Janitor though was nice enough to get me spare bed sheets. Ultimately it was the Janitor that saved my sanity.

I remember the tolman test clearly only being administered against criminals convicted of/charged with violence... and specifically telling people not to use the test on people that have not been subject to criminal process because it may generate a false positive. Hmmm... scientific process would at least require a placebo/non-positive failsafe test state to give the normal state. When you only include one side and proclaim it tracks violence, but only in people charged with violence... it's like a modern day witchhunt. There's nothing credible to balance the test statistically.

What's scarier is the N=?? test subjects for many of these tests is very very very small. Often not even enough to get a 95% check. Which against Z-test or Chi-Square or anything else that would be credible to produce a statistical precedence.

Having studied most of the studies that have been conducted, they are not credible. But they are held to be credible, because they are backed by professionals on a present day witchhunt. Just be thankful they're not labotomizing us anymore.

katana wrote:'Once in a while I think of things too bad to talk about'.

This one made me laugh if it pins an AsPD answer on a person for answering it, mostly because most people suffering from abuse, trauma, ptsd etc will consider many of their thoughts "too bad to talk about" and will struggle to cope with talking about them. A psychopath will consider nothing too bad to talk about where its clear they can get away with talking about it.

Vandel wrote: Tests of these types. They scare me. That last post with the article I posted shows just exactly how dangerous these tests are.

Vandel wrote:This is indeed an interesting subject. I've had many debates over many years with doctors of all shapes and sizes, and counsellors and social workers. There's a fundamental reliance on these tests, and as mentioned in the way we form conclusions based on non-empiracal fancy. Astrology is a good model. Having studied both astrology and a vast number of test indexes it does truly become a process of seeing things where there isn't any. I see these as upgrades to the inkblot test.

I know a lot of people I've run into on this forum over the span I've been here generally conclude in likemindedness that the entire mental health movement needs serious reform. Policy makers, especially lawmakers, and those involved directly with crminal sociological practices are generally on the forefront for pushing these sorts to be developed.

Duluth Model of Domestic Violence, Polygraph Tests... we as a species seem to put an awful lot of stock in things that look good on paper, but generally have little impact on the how we operate. It doesn't even begin to take into consideration movements from other branches where socipathic or AsPD's have basis in faulty genes. Which is also why they follow family lines. The whole process with PET and fMRI tests looking at brain patterns to determine an atrophied hippocampus can predict with accuracy whether someone was subjected to extreme levels of stress in childhood.

I'm not one for paper problems. Tests of these types. They scare me. That last post with the article I posted shows just exactly how dangerous these tests are. Depending on the scale you use, there's still opportunity for failure. And depending on what scale a person may wish to use can push people into a classification 'to fit' data however the researcher wants. Having been through the Minnesota justice system, on both federal and state level there is more than general ignorance. This isn't just a single class of profession problem. This is more a global human problem that we try to act like we know more than we do.

The remarks on taking the tests on multiple occassions gives multiple results. This is perfectly applicable especially in individuals with comorbid sets of mental illness. Having seen the good bad and the ugly, the mind of the ill can begin to fool itself. The ability to fake results is also just as easy, where an individual begins to learn more about the tests, how they work.

There's also a sense of liability that is causing a major movement here in Ontario where psychiatrists/psychologists are no longer drawing conclusions, but pushing spectrum medications. Having gone through more than my fair share of both +more, which is what prompted all my personal studies of what's really going on, only to determine that they really haven't got a clue.

It's dismal. --- Emma, I can only imagine your perspective being a member of the community. Polling people here you'll find a plethora of wise and equally distraught and disturbed individuals. I wish we knew more and had something more concrete to work with.

I'm reminded of a test developed at McMaster University Medical Center here in Ontario to test a pair of chromosones for reactions to Chemo Therapy in cancer patients. That test also had some applications in determining how likely an individual would react negatively to a family of medications. IE: SSRI's, MMOA, SNRI, etc classes of psychotropics. In my knowledge the test has never been adminsitered once to assist people in this way as insurance won't cover it, or promote it. They offered it for a time at the hospital under a test case it was $128. By time I learned about it the test was cancelled.

I throw my hands up regularily.

I argued a while back that this forum with all its collective experience could very likely come up with something more viable and practical. It's never happened, mostly likely because it was just never coordinated or taken seriously. anyways. be well. peace.

Copy_Cat wrote:

Vandel wrote: Tests of these types. They scare me. That last post with the article I posted shows just exactly how dangerous these tests are.

I would like you all to check out this test, The Child Bipolar Questionnaire http://www.jbrf.org/the-child-bipolar-q ... ilies-use/ and tell me what you think of it.

InterestedObserver wrote:As an example: 'Once in a while I think of things too bad to talk about'. Isn't that a little too subjective? For example, if I had been brought up in a family of fundamentalist Christians who opposed the sexual liberation of women, and I honestly answer 'true' to that question because I've contemplated sex a couple of times, it will skew my answer toward an ASPD diagnosis.

InterestedObserver wrote: Another example: 'At times I have fits of laughing and crying that I cannot control'. Sometimes we just get the giggles after someone has said something hilarious - it by no means questions what they are genuinely trying to get at - the people who just randomly laugh with no apparent reason...... That I don’t do – there’s always a good reason I laugh, but answering that question honestly has me classified as someone not responding to environmental stimuli normally.