Moreover, it is important to recognize that while the scales may carry official names, they do not only measure the suggested disease. For example, the schizophrenia scale appears to measure the degree of alienation that a subject feels from society at large, a number that is going to vary depending on one's role in society. For example, one would expect a healthy minority member to have a higher score of on the schizophrenia scale because minorities are generally more disenfranchised from society at large. Therefore, the tool cannot be properly utilized if the testing clinician is lacking basic facts about the subject being tested.
Moreover, these scales test for a variety of different disorders. Because PTSD is a complex disease, it often co-presents with other disorders, like addiction and depression.
Conclusion
The MMPI-2 is a very complex test that sets out to evaluate whether patients fit into certain mental health categories. The test has good utility in some areas, and can certainly suggest an array of appropriate diagnosis and treatment options to a qualified clinician administering the test. However, because many people have financial or other incentives to try to fake a PTSD diagnosis, it should be used with caution...
While individual characteristics are always important in MMPI-2 diagnoses, a clinician may have a responsibility to probe and even investigate an individual's familiarity with the test and its qualifications before making a PTSD diagnosis using the MMPI-2 as the diagnostic tool. Furthermore, because PTSD evaluations are so frequently linked to disability determinations, the clinician has a heightened responsibility to ensure that a patient is being directed to appropriate care.
References
Greiffenstein, M.F., Baker, W.J., Axelrod, B., Peck, E.A., & Gervais, R. (Dec. 2004). The Fake
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Kashdan, T.B., Elhai, J.D., & Frueh, B.C. (Sep. 2007). Anhedonia, emotional numbing, and symptom overreporting in male veterans with PTSD. Pers Individ Dif., 43(4), 725-735. Retrieved from PubMed database.
Marshall, M.S., & Bagby, R.M. (Dec. 2006). The incremental validity and clinical utility of the MMPI-2 infrequency posttraumatic stress disorder scale. Assessment, 13(4), 417-29.
Trull, T. (2005). Clinical psychology, 7th Edition. Belmont, CA. Thomson Wadsworth.
