Clinical Applications of the Personality Assessment Inventory

Mark A. Blais, PsyD., is Associate Chief of psychology and Director of the Psychological Evaluation and Research Laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital. He is also Associate Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School.Matthew R. Baity, PhD, is Assistant Professor within the California School of Professional Psychology at Alliant International University’s Sacramento campus.Christopher J. Hopwood, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology at Michigan State University.

• Blais, Baity, Hopwood, Introduction. Kurtz, Assessment of Outpatients with the PAI. Siefert, Blais, Assessment of Inpatients with the PAI. Krishnamurthy, Personality Assessment Inventory Adolescent. Khadivi, Evdokas, The Clinical Applications of the PAI in Substance Abuse Settings. Calhoun, Collie, Clancy, Braxton, Beckham, The Use of the PAI in the Assessment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Among Help-seeking Veterans. Ruiz, Ochshorn, Clinical Applications of the PAI in Criminal Justice Settings. Correa, Rogers, Cross-cultural Applications of the PAI. Clark, Oslund, Hopwood, PAI Assessment in Medical Settings. Weiss, Use of the Pai in Personnel Selection. Cheng, Frank, Hopwood, Assessment of Motor Vehicle Accident Claimants with the PAI. Blais, Hopwood, Personality Focused Assessment with the PAI. Baity, Therapeutic Assessment with the PAI.

I took a look over this prospectus and was very impressed. Although I am not that familiar with the PAI, I know it gets a good bit of usage and it is covered in many assessment classes in training programs. Just to check it out, I did a literature search on the number of citations that popped up for the PAI and as of today; there were 294 articles. It will never replace the MMPI, but that is pretty good for an instrument that was just developed and made available in the early 1990s. The number of citations increases over time as well, with 2007 being a banner year with 41 articles. Based upon my observations and these data, its use is clearly increasing as time goes on. That is good news from a marketing standpoint.In contrast to the MMPI, there are only a few books on the PAI, and as mentioned in the prospectus, they are written by Morey. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but an edited book of this nature would complement these other texts well and lend additional credence to the utility of the PAI.The editors have all published empirical articles on the PAI, although the two senior editors' publications were mostly in 2007. Regardless, they are well qualified for the task at hand and have assembled a credible group of chapter authors. Most of the chapter authors have also published empirical work on the PAI, although some are 'rising' scientists who have yet to publish in this area. The combination of seasoned and more junior authors presents a nice blend of authors to give credibility to the overall work while providing an avenue for more junior scientists to expand on their new programs of research.The editors have also done a commendable job of coming up with a standard chapter structure. This will assist with the overall readability of the book. By adhering to this structure, content will be consistent across chapters and will presumably flow well.The book will complement an already solid group of offerings that LEA has already developed in Psychological Assessment.All in all, I would encourage Taylor and Francis to move forward on this proposed project. I think it will be a nice contribution to the literature and likely purchased by a growing body of users of the PAI.- Kevin Larkin, Ph.D.This one is a winner. The three editors are top guys in personality assessment and will provide strong quality control. They selected strong, nationally known, authors for their chapters. They have many chapters about the PAI that are not found anywhere else. I would buy the book for the forensic chapters alone.- F. Barton Evans, Ph.D.