failed mmpi 2

Has anyone ever failed the mmpi 2? I had to take it to get into this new DBT skills training and the pysch who evaluated the exam said that I showed too much distress and that my answers were inconsistent so the results were inconclusive. WTF???? I answered everything soooo honestly. I am shocked. I didn't overthink anything and really what came to my mind when I read each question is what I put down. I did not try to make myself seem like a better person than I am. Seriously this is more demoralizing than anything.

She also gave me the ink blot test and just said a bunch of things like; I am seriously impaired in this.......and have major deficits in ........
Does anyone ever come out looking normal after these?

This is really getting to me. I think I should just quit this skills training because she said that I was only a fair candidate and that I would struggle very hard with myself to learn new ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving.

Has anyone else had a bad experience in testing?

wow i didnt think you could fail those tests

crap...why not just tell you you're incapable...sheesh, what a moron she is.

I have had extensive psych testing, and they have NEVER made me feel that I couldn't do it. NEVER. You had an idiot for a examiner, and she was the one confused...not you.

Sorry you had to be put thru this.

the MMPI is a personality assessment - you can't actually "fail" it (because everyone has a personality!). what it does is ranks you against the rest of the population on a variety of different aspects, so that you can see how you stand compared to the "average" person. maybe your distress levels were a lot higher than this particular DBT group is able to accomodate. this doesn't mean you're a failure, just that this group has a different client intake criteria and that you might not get the best out of this group also. kind of like offering a healthy diet and exercise program to someone who need heart surgery?

the results being inconsistent just means that your particular results might not fit a standard profile and that the clinician found it hard to draw a conclusion based on your exam. i dont doubt that you answered everything as honestly as you could, but it's a SUPER long test, so sometimes we answer one item one way and then a similar item a different way -- not because we're lying, but just because it's the answer that seemed right for that particular question. i've had weird results on different personality tests (e.g., that i'm an introvert who enjoys being the centre of attention) so please don't put too much stock on this particular test.

did the psych give you any other suggestions of treatment options that could be more appropriate?

I've never heard of having to do this type of testing in order to be in DBT. That really sucks, kacey.

((((((((((((kacey)))))))))))))

Can you request another evaluation of your results? Like a second opinion.

you cant.

the only way to fail is to not participate.

You can't fail, but I think it can be "invalid"

there is no pass or fail with MMPI and MMPI2. its a questionaire to look for mental disorders and what kinds of jobs you are qualified for and what your likes and dislikes are.

inconsistancies can happen and does happen alot. it doesnt maena your a good or bad person or you failed the tests.

inconsistancies can happenif you misread a question

example

if you mark yes for "I have suicidal thoughts" and mark no for "do you think about suicide." both are asking the same thing just in a different way.

inconsistancies can also happen if someone is trying to hide their mental disorder symptoms.

example

if if ou dont want to appear to have DID and mark no for "do you hear voices"

hearing voices is a shared symptom of DID as well as many other physical and mental health issues such as sleep depravation, schizophrenia, bipolar, schizo affective disorder depression..

but yet you may mark yes for having times when you are sad.

one symptom has been knocked out (marked no) and the other symptom has been ruled in. so the computer cant say for sure one way or the other.

inconsistancies also happen when the person taking the test tries to manipulate the tests to show they have a certain mental disorder. mental disorders share many of the same symptoms so when you mark yes to some symptoms you may not have the test cant point to any one disorder. it throws the test results off.

for example if you want to appear to have DID and you mark you hear voices, have alters, have memory problems feel numb much of the time the scoring says you tested positive for DID, schizophreina, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder alzheimers, aspergers. the computer has so many positives that it cant point to one disorder.

my suggestion tell your psychiatrist you were not up to your best and would like to retake the evaluation. You will be given a different test but as long as you take your time and read each question and mark them honestly you will get accurate results.

Kacey, does this test have any impact on the DBT class? Can you still take the class even if they found your test results inconclusive? If the answer is yes, I would just leave this test and its results behind. Many practitioners find face to face meetings and getting to know a client more useful in evaluation than tests like these, so hopefully the DBT class therapist will be of this mind. Just go to the class and do your best to learn the skills. I am sure the skills group therapist will appreciate your motivation and effort. I don't understand the examiner's comment of your being only a fair candidate for DBT and it being hard to change your thinking/feeling/behaving. If not DBT, then what does she suggest as an alternative? Individual therapy? CBT? Telling someone that a certain method of therapy will likely not be helpful to them is not very useful unless they also tell what approach would be helpful.

On psych tests: I find that a lot of tests like these give you two possible responses to a question, both of which are quite extreme. I usually fall in the middle so don't know what to pick. I often pick one response on a question, and then if a similar question comes up again, I pick the opposite. This way I hope the answers will even out and place me somewhere in the middle. If this makes my results seem inconclusive or inconsistent, so be it. I place the fault with the writers of the test who don't offer intermediate responses that reflect where I am in life, my true personality, etc.

Kacey, I'm so sorry you've had such a bad experience. This all sounds quite horrifying. I'm not at all clear why your particular clinic regards these tests as some kind of 'entrance exam' to DBT. There is nothing at all like this written into DBT itself. I'm also very confused by her feedback from the MMPI- DBT is used primarily for people with borderline personality disorder. A key element of BPD is an unstable sense of self (personality), making it quite likely, to me, that people would not come out with a 'consistent' personality profile.

As far as I (and I suspect Marsha Linehan) am concerned, it is not possible to 'show too much distress' to be to do DBT. These are exactly the people who DBT was designed for- people with high levels of distress, sui and SI behaviour, who were rejected by more established therapies and therapists as being too hard to treat, and unlikely to recover.

Yes, we do struggle to learn new ways of thinking, feeling and behaving. DBT is built for people who have these very struggles. And it works. But how demoralizing to be given such very negative feedback by a DBT programme. Even more baffling in light of the fact that a few months ago, your T selected your sessions to be filmed for his DBT training, because he felt they so perfectly reflected how DBT looks when it is working well!!

I'm so very sorry they are behaving like this. Please don't give up. You *can* do it, and DBT *can* help you.