Eric G. Mart, Ph.D., ABPP | March 30, 2013
Most reports authored by psychologists and some by psychiatrists contain descriptions of test results. Psychological tests are used in many types of forensic assessments; child custody, mental state at the time of offense, and criminal competencies are just a few examples. When it comes to tests of personality functioning, objective inventories such as the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2), the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI), and the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory are among the most commonly used, although many others are sometimes employed.
Lawyers deposing or cross-examining mental health experts should be aware that these tests can be scored in several ways. They can be hand scored, although this is becoming much less common. In most cases, they are computer scored using proprietary software from the publisher of the test. Experts have the option to download a score report and interpret the scores themselves. They can download a narrative “canned” report that interprets the test for them. Some individuals choosing the latter option may actually cut and paste whole paragraphs of the narrative into their own report without attributing the source.
Most experienced forensic mental health experts avoid the narrative versions because they do not want to be locked into the interpretations and diagnoses provided by these reports. Another problem is that it is not always possible to know about the source of the interpretations or whether they are based on empirical studies, clinical lore, or guesswork. Further, cutting and pasting such material directly into a report may constitute a copyright violation. Finally, some mental health experts are under the mistaken impression that if they don’t print out the narrative, it is not part of their file and therefore not discoverable.
For these reasons, attorneys may find it useful to determine just how the tests employed by an expert were scored. Experts can also be asked directly if they have an interpretive report on their computer that they did not supply as part of discovery. If so, the report should be obtained, and the expert’s report should be compared side by side with the “canned” report. The expert can also be questioned about their understanding of the scientific basis of the statements they included in their report. In many cases, they will have no idea about the reliability of the interpretive statements upon which they relied.