Personality Assessment in Treatment Planning: Use of the MMPI-2 and BTPI

by James N. Butcher, Julia N. Perry

The establishment of frank and honest communication is one of the most important early goals of psychotherapy. Indeed, the most prominent challenge in the early stages of treatment is to develop a comfortable relationship that allows disclosure. In this volume, the authors show that objectively interpreted personality measures can be applied in psychotherapeutic assessments to facilitate an understanding of the patient and a thriving treatment program.
Successful psychotherapy depends upon an early understanding of the patient's problems and personality and the establishment of attainable treatment goals. The extensive accumulated base of knowledge about personality and its maladjustment has become crucial when making treatment decisions about individuals in psychotherapy, and the field of personality assessment provides both methods and substantive information to support treatment-oriented evaluation.
The MMPI has a long tradition of providing personality information about clients in mental health settings since the 1940s. James Butcher participated in the creation of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2) in 1989, which has continued to be one of the most commonly used personality tests in clinical evaluation. Over a thousand studies have been conducted on the effectiveness of the MMPI in treatment related assessments. Here, Butcher and co-author Julia Perry explore the MMPI-2 as well as a new assessment tool, the Butcher Treatment Planning Inventory (BTPI). In using psychological evaluation techniques for treatment planning, many clinicians incorporate information from a broad base of instruments-clinical interview, projective testing, behavioral data, and personal history-and do not rely on data from a single source. Therefore, while this volume focuses on the use of the MMPI-2 and the BTPI in treatment planning, it will provide a context not to the exclusion
of other measures.

264 pages, Hardcover

First published February 12, 2008

About the author

James N Butcher is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Butcher received his graduate training at the University of North Carolina and served on the faculty of the University of Minnesota for over 40 years. He has written more than 50 books and 175 articles on the MMPI®, MMPI®-2, and MMPI-A, including Essentials of MMPI-2 and MMPI-A Interpretation (with Dr Carolyn Williams), published in 2000 by the University of Minnesota Press. He was instrumental in identifying the need for a revision of the MMPI, which resulted in the MMPI Restandardization Project conducted during the 1980s and 1990s.

More recently, Dr. Butcher co-authored two books published by the American Psychological Association: Assessing Hispanic Clients Using the MMPI-2 and MMPI-A (with Jose Cabiya, Emilia Lucio and Maria Garrido, 2007) and the third edition of The MMPI/MMPI-2/MMPI-A in Court (with Ken Pope and Joyce Seelen, 2006). Butcher and 25 colleagues from around the world used the Adolescent Interpretive System of the Minnesota Report to develop International Case Studies on the MMPI-A: An Objective Approach. This casebook illustrates the use of the Minnesota Report with adolescents in 15 countries outside the United States.