An Interpersonal Perspective on the Personality Assessment Process

Abstract

Many aspects of therapeutic approaches to the personality assessment process derived from or are consistent with Sullivan's interpersonal approach to clinical practice, but the link between such approaches and contemporary interpersonal theory remains underdeveloped. In this article, I argue that contemporary interpersonal theory provides a valuable framework within which to conceptualize the personality assessment process. Specifically, I argue that interpersonal models can parsimoniously represent client behavior and can facilitate discussions of assessment data with assessees. Further, I show that hypotheses on the therapeutic mechanisms of personality assessment can be reframed in contemporary interpersonal metatheory so that they can be compared and tested directly.

Notes

¹Various terms have been used to describe therapeutic approaches to personality assessment. Finn (2007) defined therapeutic assessment as the general attitude among assessors that assessment might derive clinical benefit, in contrast to Therapeutic Assessment (TA; all capitals), which refers to his specific, semistructured approach. I use TA as Finn (2007) defined it, but I otherwise refer to the personality assessment process as involving personality assessment and its potential clinical benefits. This accommodates variants of therapeutic assessment (e.g., Fischer, 1985) and any aspects of “information-gathering” assessment that could have therapeutic (or countertherapeutic) effects.

²Note that any violations of standardized administration of psychological assessment instruments may have undesirable and often unknown consequences for test validity. As such, standardized test administration should generally not be violated in practice.

³Although not central to this article, aspects of the interpersonal process can also affect test data directly (see Lord, 1950; Luft, 1953; Masling, 1956, 1959).