Texas Tech and the PATS lab really brought some awesome stuff this year! We had a number of projects presented by current grad and undergrad members, as well as having a big group attending. I can’t be more thrilled with the work of everyone. I’m going to touch on the projects we presented and add some pictures of us having a great time all around. Citations link to presentations for download.

Menton, W. H., Whitman, M. R., Tylicki, J., Morris, N.M. , Tarescavage, Ingram, P.B., A. M., Gervais, R. O., Wygant, D. B., Ben-Porath, Y.S. (2022, June). Predictive Utility of Experimental Higher-Order Validity Scales for the MMPI-3. Comprehensive presentation presented at the 2022 Annual MMPI Research Symposium, Minneapolis, MN.

Keen, M., Morris, N.M., & Ingram, P.B. (2022, June). Development and Initial Validation of the Scale of Scales (SOS) Over-Reporting Scales for the MMPI-3. Data blitz presented at the 2022 Annual MMPI Research Symposium, Minneapolis, MN.

Cole, B.P., & Ingram, P.B. (2022, June). Treatment prediction in an outpatient telehealth clinic: Relationships between MMPI-3 scores and positive-psychology intervention engagement and outcome. Data blitz presented at the 2022 Annual MMPI Research Symposium, Minneapolis, MN.

Peters, A.S., Morris, N.M. & Ingram, P.B. (2022, June). Classification Accuracy of the MMPI-3’s Eating Concerns (EAT) Scale using a Common Screening Measure as the Criterion. Poster presented at the 2022 Annual MMPI Research Symposium, Minneapolis, MN.

Morris, N.M., Patterson, T.P. , Ingram, P.B., & Cole, B.P. (June, 2022). MMPI-3 and Gender: The moderating role of masculine identity on item endorsement. Blitz talk presented at the 2022 Annual MMPI Research Symposium, Minneapolis, MN.

And now for some pictures of all the lab fun!

I’m excited to head to my first APS conference to present some recent work by Sarah Hirsch and Megan Keen on the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) and efforts to map HiTop onto this instrument. We focused on military populations and used an EFA/CFA approach on distinct samples but examine how (and how well) these efforts apply to military service members.

We conducted a series of EFAs on a sample of active duty soldiers seen as part of a neuropsychological evaluation, then performed Goldberg’s (2006) Back-ackwards analysis to link observed factor structures in each EFA solution, up to the 7-factor model comprising the HiTop Sub-spectra. We were able to identify many of the Spectre-Sub-Spectra factors and the initial standardized loadings seemed to make good sense with the HiTop Model descriptions; however, diagnostic discrimination was not as clean as we may hoped and there were several unexpected correlations which were medium/large in magnitude, which suggest some inflated general inner correlation (reminding us of the CS7/CS8 correlation in the MMPI-2 prior to the creation of the restructured clinical (RC) scales).

Next up, we took a group of Veterans being evaluated as part of their intake process on an outpatient PTSD Clinical Team (PCT). We started with the initial EFA model, but failed to find good fit. Rather than follow EFA correlations as corrections, we evaluated from the bottom up on individual sub-spectra, trimming poorly fitted items/spectra. Our goal in taking these steps was to produce a replicable model with only strong, expected relationships, even if that means a model not fully congruent with HiTop. Avoiding dual loading indicators also ensures a more interpretable model since it maintains component independence.

You can download the posters by clicking here for the CFA or the EFA posters!

The PHQ-2/9 is one of, if not the most, used screening measure for depression. It is implemented in a standardized manner into treatment outcome research and patient-based care initiatives. However, interpreting what scores represent amongst the broad spectrum of internalizing spectrum of pathology is critical. Despite items representing ‘depression’ criteria (A1-A9; DSM-5), these experiences are not unique to depressed individuals. Evaluating screening with the MMPI-3 offers a way to examine interpretative meaning using a new, highly validated broadband measure. Following up to a paper under review by Nicole Morris, presented at the 2021 MMPI symposium, I was playing around with data visualization.

The role of positive screening on the PHQ-9 (cut-score 10) was most associated with self-doubt; a trend which wasn’t entirely consistent on the PHQ-2 (cut-score 3). While Self-Doubt (SFD; Navy line) maintained a major role, helplessness was the stand-out (HLP; Green Line). Different item content let to distinctive internalizing symptoms as the driving aspect of a positive screening.

Nicole did some excellent work to build on the limited literature on PAI validity scales, evaluating their effectiveness in a military sample evaluated within a neuropsychology clinic. We used performance validity (PVT; MSVT, NVMSVT) to compare group differences. Limited work has been done prior to now on some of the PAI validity scales (see McCredie & Morey, 2018), so expanding this literature for one of the most popular and widely used personality measures (Ingram et al., 2019, 2022; Mihura et al., 2017; Wright et al., 2017) is critical. I’ve reproduced the classification accuracy statistics below for ease. The entire paper may be downloaded HERE.

One of my fantastic undergraduates conducted a study using existing MMPI-3 study data (Morris et al., 2021; Reeves et al., 2022) to compare the effectiveness of the over-reporting scales across in person and virtual administrations. Given the guidelines put out about telehealth assessment (Corey & Ben-Porath, 2020) and the expanding research on general comparative effects of virtual psychological interventions, we expected that the scales would perform equally. Indeed, that was what we found. One implication of our findings is that future meta-analyses of the MMPI-3 validity scales will likely not need to consider this element of study design as a potential moderator for scale effectiveness.

Click HERE to download a copy of the study poster.

In case you’re wondering, how does what I do make sense to me? This is how! I try to involve most of my projects with at least two of these intersecting areas of focus. I also wanted an excuse to post a stick figure.

Today (in about 30 minutes from my writing this) I’m going to be presenting to Division 12 (Clinical Psychology)’s section for Students and Early Career Professions (formally called Section Ten). I’m super excited to help demystify the internship process and help applicants maximize their success and desired career trajectories. I also want to make sure the materials are available from the talk

Click the slide below to download a PowerPoint version of the talk

After the talk, I will also be updating this post to include a video of the talk. Stay tuned!

Over the last few years I’ve started to delve into competency research, particularly around psychological assessment. In brief, research over the last two decades has clearly detailed that students do not have a sufficient amount of training in psychological assessment to effectively and efficiently conduct the higher-order conceptual tasks associated with diagnosis and behavior prediction via a finalized integrative report. A recent predoctoral internship match survey also highlights this insufficient training with the median number of assessment hours is 100 while the median number of therapy hours is over 600.

My work has also shown how poorly perceived competence is related to performance-based competence (Ingram et al., 2019, 2020), and how prediction of wanting to engage in assessment is a function of perceived competency (Preprint: Bergquist et al., 2019). Some pre-doctoral training programs dont even expect this core competency (Ingram et al., 2021). Research on developing competency in assessment also lags far behind psychotherapy training, with substantially less research. The research creates a cohesive message: doctoral psychologists are not sufficiently trained in this core component of our identity and professional practice.

At the same time, APA is adapting the times and pushing an accredited masters program framework in health psychology (some states have LPA licenses, but not specific accreditation standards of psychology on which to rely). This is a good move by APA and helps them ensure clinical psychological practice has a foothold in the discussion of what constitutes good treatment. We need this seat at the table – this is the newest iteration of the old battle that led to psychologists being able to do therapy, much to the resistance of psychiatrists at the time.

The problem is “if doctoral psychologists are not competent at the end of their program, how can masters level folks do the same?”. This is a big problem and a major question. Recently a set of proposed guidance was released and public comments were allowed. The purpose of this guidance was to setup the scope of practice for these providers. I had the opportunity to help prepare a set of shared comments from APA Division 12 (Clinical Psychology)’s section for Assessment Psychology. These (Click to download a draft of the document and HERE for the final version) are some takeaways about how to make sure assessment conducted by the MA provider is good practice not just practice from my perspective/contribution to the document.

• Restrict scope of practice within psychological assessment
• Ensure strong conceptual understanding of diagnostic, psychometric, and socio-cultural theory necessary to effectively produce integrative interpretations
• Specify the type of training sequence required similar to the explicitness of doctoral program requirement
• Require specific training, including supervised applied practica
• Expand research on training and competency development in assessment

Suicide is a low frequency, high impact behavior. By extension, assessment of suicide is a critical component to effective mental health intervention. Research on suicide has expanded (see Bryan’s [2021] Rethinking Suicide: Why Prevention Fails, and how We Can Do Better, for instance) to suggest that future prediction of risk is also more complicated that the historical linear pathway we prescribe (ideation leads to planning and planning leads to attempts). In short, suicide is a high impact behavior which we are poorly able to predict.

Further complicating the assessment of suicide risk is the robust research base which has found clinical judgement limited. Consistently, clinical decision making underperforms relative to statistical/actuarial methods (see Meehl, 1954 or Ægisdóttir et al., 2006 for a meta-analytic review). Such findings reflect that we are poor prognosticators of future behavior based on our understanding of past behavior.

We wondered about the over-simplification of the type of prediction. In short, are all tasks (regardless of seriousness) equally poor at being predicted by clinical judgement OR are all actuarial measures created equal within the framework of measurement based care (Meehl’s original work was in support of the MMPI, rather than brief and less robustly validated measures which dominate clinical monitoring). Thus, our study looks at suicide risk in a sample of outpatient mental health Veteran patients, including both agreement between actuarial/judgement at intake and risk assessment over time. Big shoutout to Keegan Deihl (a recently adopted grad student) and Tristan Herring (undergrad lab member) for their work on this project, which is being presented at the 2021 Combat PTSD Conference.

Click here to download the poster PDF.

Click here to see the pre-recorded video presented to the 2021 Combat PTSD Conference (with presentation by PATS’ very own Tristan Herring)

I’m excited that the work out of the PATS lab is reaching the folks who can use it. Earlier this year, I published an article looking at internship site competitiveness for health service psychology graduate students from the perspective of Directors of Training. Next month, I will be presenting to the section for students and early career professionals in Society of Clinical Psychology (APA Division 12) as part of a webinar about this work. I can’t wait!