The impact of pre-treatment identification of personality style and personality disorder symptoms on psychotherapy outcomes in a training clinic

To investigate the clinical and fiscal feasibility of administering a pre-treatment, dimensional personality assessment to clients seeking treatment at university-based counseling centers, a multi-phase study was conducted. This study sought to replicate the results of a recent study conducted by Ryder, Costa Jr., and Bagby (2007) regarding the validity of the DSM-IV-TR PD symptoms and their relationship to normal personality traits. This study also investigated the clinical utility of providing pre-treatment personality information to therapists, as assessed by a dimensional measure of normal personality the NEO-PI-R. Impact on treatment outcome was evaluated. After completing a pre-treatment assessment battery, university-affiliated clinic clients were randomly assigned to treatment condition (therapist received results of NEO-Pl-R assessment or therapist did not receive results). Client treatment outcome data were collected for the first six sessions of therapy. Results from both phases of the study were mixed, indicating that additional research on both topics is warranted. Replication analyses generally supported the results of Ryder et al. (2007); however, more research needs to be conducted before the generalizability of the results can be adequately addressed. Likewise, access to pre-treatment personality assessment results appeared to be beneficial from a preventive medicine perspective; however, more methodologically rigorous investigations need to be conducted before anything definitive can be deduced