Multiphasic Personality Inventory Case Study

Jeff is a Human Services Professional who has recently moved to a new city. He is working at a community mental agency. He speaks fluent Spanish and has worked with culturally diverse groups. The agency often receives Latino/a client’s who are court ordered to receive mental health services. At the agency there is one Latina therapist and the rest of the staff is White. He often hears negative comments made by some of the therapists about Latino/a client’s. He overheard one therapist saying she diagnoses most of her Hispanic clients with personality disorders using MMPI-2 (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) and none of them are getting better nor do they actively participate in therapy. Jeff is concerned the agency is bias in

One of the therapists openly stated she diagnoses most of her Hispanic clients with personality disorders using the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2). The MMPI had been normed (i.e., standardized as far as cutoff scores reflecting normal vs. psychopathological behavior) exclusively on White subjects; and second, because it was being used extensively to make decisions about hospitalizing patients, a disproportionate percentage of whom were people of color (Diller, 2015). With the therapist focusing all assessment and diagnosing using this instrument there is an automatic bias. The MMPI-2, a revision of its predecessor, was tested initially on both African Americans and Native American sample populations (Diller, 2015). The resulting research has been so confusing, however, that Dana (1988) and Graham (1987) both concluded it is best to not use the test with ethnic group members (Diller, 2015). As a human service professional, the therapist should be keeping up to date on the research about different tests and instruments they are using. With the therapist doing this research they would understand this instrument should not be used. The result, as the therapist states, is the clients aren’t getting

There are three forms of racial microagressions including microassaults, microinsults, and microinvalidations (Diller, 2015). Microassaults are verbal and nonverbal attacks intended with vcaring degrees of conscious awareness to hurt a person of color through name-calling, avoidance, or other forms of discriminatory behavior and insensitivity (Diller, 2015). An example of microassaults would be color blindness. Color blindness is the statements which indicate a White person does not want to acknowledge race. A White therapist says “When I see you, I don’t see color” which to the client of color means race and culture are not important variables affecting people’s lives (Diller, 2015). Microinsults are communications conveying rudeness and demean a person’s racial heritage or identity (Diller, 2015). An example of this would be alien in own land which occurs when Asian Americans and Latin Americans are assumed to be foreign-born (Diller, 2015). The microaggression would be when the White therapist tells an American born Latino/a client he should seek a Spanish-speaking therapist which says to the client you are not American (Diller, 2015). Microinvalidations are communications which exclude, negate, or nullify psychological thoughts, feelings, or experiential reality of people of color (Diller, 2015). An example would be pathologizing cultural