MMPI

Has anyone taken this?

This is a test that some psychologists use, apparently, to diagnose patients and conceptualize cases.... I am told that it is used often in understanding patients.

Do you think your T would use a test like this to understand you better?

My T co-arthured a book on it a couple of years ago, some my assumption is that he would. However, he has never had me take any kinds of test yet. He does do a lot of psychological testing for agencies and for criminal cases, etc.. I am assuming that is what he uses.

I took the MMPI this past spring. It was very long. I had a horrific experience with the psychiatrist that scored my test and talked to me about the results. She was very insulting and ugly to me so much so that my moms were so angry. (I have seven ladies in my life who act as moms to me and give me what I missed out on in my childhood.) Two of them had to come to my house that night, because I was feeling suicidal at that point, because of the way this doctor treated me.

The psychiatrist said there was no indicator of any mental illness and that I just needed to get over my childhood and I would be fine. She said some things in a very snarky way, but it makes me angry thinking about it. Everyone, including myself, thought I would surely be diagnosed with bipolar, but I wasn't. I do have major depressive disorder and now see a psychiatric nurse practitioner who has found the perfect combination of medications that have worked miracles for me.

It was good news to hear I wasn't bipolar, but my experience with the psychiatrist was so bad that I don't even have it in me to explain it at the moment. Taking the test itself was not a bad experience, but it was VERY long and the questions made absolutely no sense in relation to mental illness. But, I'm told it is all related. I was also told that the test is set up to where there is a way to decipher if someone is lying. I forgot the term that was used, but some people try to make themselves seem worse or better than they actually are.

I was told I answered to the extreme side of every question which told her I didn't have a mental illness. So, apparently if you answer the questions too honestly and it looks like every answer is on the darker, sadder side of the spectrum you supposedly won't have a mental illness. I was so confused. I think I'm still confused. My therapist really helped me navigate all this. She did an amazing job of helping me get through the whole experience.

I found it confusing too. I realize now that the test really only measures as well as you can tell it.

Answering honestly (I got a high score on honesty) it said my personality was a complete mix; antisocial, uninhibited traits combined with grandiose traits, projection, and argumentativeness, and inhibited conformity, as well as shyness. By the way, the antisocial traits are not really correlated all that strongly to being antisocial; they have to do with questions like "my family disapproves of me." Which my family does... so...

I don't know; this is so weird to me. Now all those years of psychologists insisting I had to "express my anger" make sense because apparently that test result is very common to "females," who typically "have trouble expressing anger." Nobody in my real life would ever say that about me! I always thought those treatments were such B.S. (and they were) but maybe it was my fault. I don't know, none of this makes sense.

I don't know, maybe this really is how I come off to others. But it just makes no sense.

Yes. My therapist had me take it after a few months into our relationship. It was long and had many redundant questions, but it was not too awful. Afterwards, she scored the test in front of me and gave me my score. 2-8-0.

But she didn't explain a single thing to me except that it indicated I was depressed. I freaked out at "schizophrenia" and she said that was just a general descriptor not related to the actual disease. So I relaxed.

I did some research on my profile, which wasn't that hard to do. The truth came out. For weeks I just held my tongue, thinking we'd eventually talk about it. When it didn't, I tried to get over it...not wanting to make a big deal out of something that didn't warrant concern. But one day my therapist said something like "you're normal! you're well within two standard deviations of the mean!" And I just couldn't take it anymore.

I demanded to know why she would give me a personality test and but not explain what my score meant. And I told I knew it meant something, as I had done the research. I reminded her that I'm not a dummy, being a scientist myself. She was holding back from me and I was tired of listening to her lying face.

So that was when she came out and told me that I indeed had a personality disorder, but she hadn't wanted to tell me because the label is considered an insult by some professionals. And she said she was also in denial...she didn't want to believe.

After that, things got a lot better. Less "you're so normal" business.

My diagnosis has changed (though secretly I'm still keeping the old one since its easier for me to relate to). But from my experience, the test will indeed pick up on quirkiness. It has measures that will test your honesty/reliability, so don't overthink it. Just answer the questions as best you can.

I've taken the MMPI twice ! One time was during my inpatient hospitalization and the other time was during my residential treatment stay. It was incredibly long and tedious- many repetitive questions. If I recall correctly there were between 500-600 questions. The first time I took it on paper with a Scantron and filling in all of those bubbles took me HOURS. The second time I took it on the computer, which was much more bearable. Nobody ever went over my results with me I'm curious now as to how the test turned out and what it would have said about my personality.
Sometimes they will charge you to have someone review the results with you.

I had full psychological testing in college and then again about 5 years ago. The MMPI was part of both sets of testing. As part of the the full battery of testing, the results were reviewed together with other test results to create a comprehensive psychological assessment and the individual results of the various tests were never discussed alone. Personally, I liked that approach feeling that the pscyhologists who did the testing weren't relying solely on the results from one test to diagnose or describe me. I'm sure it was a much more expensive route than just giving the MMPI.

My T gave my son the MMPI on its own just to be sure he wasn't missing anything. He sat down with my son and I and went through the test results, explaining what the various categories meant and where he fell within them. There weren't any particular surprises for my T or us really, but it was at least good to know we are on the right track.

I took 2 versions of this test along with a few other things. My T then wrote up a report on the results and we discussed them. I personally liked the idea of the testing . I was open and honest and it really just confirmed things I already knew about myself. However, my partner found the report interesting as she could see i wasn't exaggerating or making things up and that there were some areas of my personality, or perspectives, that were drastically different then hers. I still look at it from time to time. no regrets here.

I hadn't heard of it before reading your thread ... I looked it up after that and found what was said to be an online version of around 500 questions? as with most tests I found it really limiting with the possible answers you can give so don't understand how it helps or can really be used but then that's been my experience of most questionairres

My T gave me the MMPI. We immediately went over the findings. He was respectful and gently worded what the results indicated, one section at a time. (Computerized- hand scoring takes quite a long while.) I think the science behind it is rather interesting. The test is used to build a psychological profile of people who are trying to go into law enforcement and the FBI, for example. The test has been created in a way that indicates if someone is "faking bad" or "faking good" and gives a probability of malingering. I'm such a geek that I find that neat. I pretty much already knew what my results would indicate about me, but taking it gave my T nuance insight that would have otherwise taken a while to figure out. I no longer see that T and am now seeing a psychiatric practice for medication for bipolar, but everything revealed by my MMPI results has pretty much lined up with my diagnosis.

I took it quite a few years ago along with some other tests during testing for DID. It was long and boring. My husband is a therapist and i found a copy in his office ( which is in our home) a few weeks ago. To me the whole thing seems pretty redundant and silly.

There is a reason for the redundancy. Does make it probably the most boring test to take ever though.

I know the reasons for the test, but i still think its silly and boring.

So, I wonder why some Ts have their clients take them and not others?

My therapist sprung the test on me when it became clear that my depression was atypical.

I'm not sure why either! I guess it might be useful in case conceptualization. Maybe if therapists give a certain test enough times, they can even tell how their patients might score.

There are nine scales for things like hypochondria, depression, paranoia, obsessiveness, etc and then a bunch of other things. I wasn't really clear on whether these measure those things as personality traits or symptoms- I think that part might be open to interpretation though since the test doesn't really say, "how do you feel today," or "how do you feel usually."