Should authors of personality assessments be allowed to author how personality is assessed under DSM-5 and ICD-11?

Science, Conflicts of Interest and our Personalities

Should authors of personality assessments be allowed to author how personality is assessed under DSM-5 and ICD-11?

Science, Conflicts of Interest and our Personalities

Todd Finnerty, Psy.D.

I am still posting to the Psychology.news blog every now-and-then. If you haven’t already feel free to have Google let you know by email the next time I post by subscribing with Feedburner:  https://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=PsychologyDotNews&loc=en_US

Personally, I totally think we should let the fox design the security we use for our hen houses. How about you?


I’ve written about this topic multiple times before in the remote past and even used similar titles– first a little background– then a trip down memory lane. Meanwhile, history has been repeating.

The DSM-5 was first published in May 2013. If you remember, it caused a bit of a stir. There also was a multi-year process leading up to it where proposals were released and comments from the public were submitted to the American Psychiatric Association via their website (we didn’t really get to read all the comments that other people were making though which would have been hilarious- which is why I won’t refer to them as “public comments”). I submitted multiple comments related to the DSM-5 proposals including one about the personality disorders proposal that included concerns about conflicts of interest. The comments were similar to the ones I presented in the blog posts I’m going to re-run for you below. I talked about these DSM-5 personality disorders conflict of interest concerns when I presented for the New Hampshire Psychological Association, Ohio Psychological Association and Cleveland Psychological Association prior to the DSM-5 being published and also talked a bunch of smack in various listserv discussions including on the Society for a Science of Clinical Psychology’s listserv (where Lee Anna Clark, Ph.D. was a member/ participant and now a past president). I’m sure I posted it multiple places online as well including on one of my old blogs which we will revisit below. Anyway-

Some Disclosures as we start to talk about DSM-5 and ICD-11: 

  • In 2009 I self-published a “book” about Depressive Personality Disorder which was basically trying to influence the outcome of DSM-5 (I also owned all the relevant domain names associated with that at the time but don’t any more). I also wrote something supportive of DPD in the National Psychologist (fun fact: my article showed up right next to an article from Lee Anna Clark, Ph.D. in that issue).
  • I also self-published a “book” in May 2013 just before the release of the DSM-5 which, it is fair to say, was the first book on Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder ever in history. Based on a quick Amazon search it may still be the ONLY book with the name Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder in the title- what is wrong with you guys? My book sucks so someone needs to write something better. Incidentally, I also interviewed Ellen Leibenluft, MD about DMDD before that for my old podcast but that is another story for another time; the podcast is gone but many of the episodes are still archived on YouTube. This book was actually supportive of the DMDD proposal for the most part despite the fact that much of what I’d heaped at DSM-5 in general was critical.
  • As the DSM-5 proposals were released and as the web pages were updated over time I had a utility monitoring the pages on the web for changes and whenever there was a change I received an email with the details of the changes. In that way I registered many of the domain names related to the new names for disorders. I have since sold some of them, still offer a few for sale that I held on to and have let others expire since it is clear no one will want to buy them and I won’t be creating a website on them for educational purposes or to sell some random self-published book. So, full disclosure, I’ve made money and continue to make money in relation to the DSM-5 changes and not just because of the CE courses I’ll mention next.
  • Around this time I also ran PsychContinuingEd.com, LLC, a continuing education website, and one of our best-selling courses ever was just a test that walked people through the changes in their new DSM-5 manual they just purchased. As of this blog post the DSM-5 test is still online and you can check it out for free if you want to but no CE credits are available. I am not sure if I’ll keep that CE website up forever though since I’m no longer using it for anything and refused to sell it since I didn’t want to pass along my customer data to anyone else, etc.
  • Truthfully, it isn’t just about money in relation to conflicts- I was caught up in the excitement of the DSM-5 changes (some I liked, some I hated) and read lots of articles and even watched what was happening with the ICD-10-CM Coordination and Maintenance Committee. That committee is fairly relevant to this post because it impacts how the WHO’s ICD gets used in the United States (then the ICD-9-CM and now ICD-10-CM and maybe someday ICD-11-CM). The American Psychiatric Association goes there and helps makes the “CM” version of the ICD used in the U.S.A. look like the DSM (now DSM-5) instead of the ICD-IO-CM looking like the WHO’s ICD-10 (or ICD-11). However, it does look like some people who were involved in DSM-5 have influenced the ICD-11 in relation to personality disorders.
In DSM-5 after much ado we actually got almost nothing- there were no official changes actually made to the personality disorders. You may remember that the DSM-5 Personality Disorders work group was rife with controversy and included public resignations and squabbles and what they came up with was a hodge-podge compromise between people who were trying to delete the discrete personality disorder diagnoses in favor of a system based on personality traits vs. people who’d made careers of studying the discrete personality disorders (and at least one who sold a test influenced by them- the PAI). It was a bit of a mess IMHO and to over-simplify. Anyway, the proposal didn’t fly and it got rammed in the back of the DSM-5 as an alternative system for most clinicians to ignore (Personality Disorder Trait Specified). The traits listed on page 770 of my DSM-5 are:
  • Negative Affectivity (vs Emotional Stability)
  • Detachment (vs Extraversion)
  • Antagonism (vs Agreeableness)
  • Disinhibition (vs Conscientiousness)
  • Psychoticism (vs Lucidity)
Anyway, so I had some fun in relation to making comments about the DSM-5 and want to walk back down memory lane since it looks like we can expect this further-research-needed proposal to resurface. Something like them have in fact resurfaced as official in the upcoming ICD-11. I’m now reprinting two blog posts from an old blog I blew up years ago below right here in this blog post for you (yes, it is hard to actually delete things on the internet even when you think you won’t care about them anymore). Anyway, the blog posts are still relevant I think. I have half-paid attention to the ICD-II but not much. However, it is particularly relevant because some of the same players are in a position of influence impacting how the ICD plays out and this may influence future revisions of the DSM-5. The ICD-11 has been officially adopted by the WHO and will be in use someday somewhere (though who knows when in the US). You can see from what I copied today 12/6/19 from the ICD-11 Browser that what they’ve instituted was influenced by the DSM-5 proposals:
  • 6D11.0 Negative affectivity in personality disorder or personality difficulty
  • 6D11.1 Detachment in personality disorder or personality difficulty
  • 6D11.2 Dissociality in personality disorder or personality difficulty
  • 6D11.3 Disinhibition in personality disorder or personality difficulty
  • 6D11.4 Anankastia in personality disorder or personality difficulty
  • 6D11.5 Borderline pattern

Under the WHO’s upcoming ICD-11 there are no longer discrete personality disorders like there was in DSM-IV and retained in DSM-5 (though a pseudo-exception for a “borderline pattern” was of course made since people went nutty about it). I think it is fun and relevant because I noticed that one of the people  influencing how ICD-11 would look was Lee Anna Clark, Ph.D., who was a liaison from the DSM-5. It is amusing to me because I wrote about her (and others) during the time prior to publication of the DSM-5 due to potential conflicts of interest, conflicts of interest which also impact the ICD-11. A noticeable percentage of people charged with determining how personality disorders should look under DSM-5 actually stood to make money (or lose money) based on how that turned out; the “lose money” is speculative of course but in that instance I’m mostly thinking of Les Morey, Ph.D. (Leslie) who is author of the Personality Inventory (PAI) and was one of the DSM-5 Personality Disorders Workgroup members. The posts below that I made in the past don’t really focus on him too much but I should have mentioned it more in these posts since it was arguing between these foxes which impacted the construction of the hen house we’ll be getting in the future.

Since the ICD-11 personality disorders were influenced by these factors from the past– let’s go back in time– back to posts from 2010- over nine years ago. Here is a re-run of an old blog post of mine copied exactly from the WayBackMachine at Archive.org (the functionality of some or all of the links may be impacted); this post originally appeared 3/26/2010 at my old blog on WorldWideMentalHealth.com (which no longer exists and I no longer own WorldWideMentalhealth.com). They are from nine year ago so please forgive me a bit; I left them intact for you- typos and all. It is also notable that many of the links to materials related to the proposals on the DSM-5 website are now gone from the current version of the DSM-5 website (wink, wink; nudge, nudge) so you’d need to explore the waybackmachine yourself if you really wanted to go down a rabbit hole.

Here is old blog post number one unedited:

Can you author an assessment of personality and then author how personality should be assessed in DSM-5? (yes)

March 26th, 2010

Is authoring psychological assessments related to personality disorders a potential conflict of interest for DSM-5 personality disorder workgroup membership?

During the current revision process of DSM-5 there has been plenty of talk about the process itself. I myself can’t help but wonder what motivates individual scientists when it comes to evaluating the science behind mental disorders. While there has been plenty of talk related to conflicts of interest and the pharmaceutical industry, has sufficient attention been paid to potential conflicts with psychological testing publishers (and potential royalties from the sale of psychological tests)? Two Personality Disorders work group members have authored personality tests that include some scales that contain names which are  similar to the names that have been proposed as potential “facets” constructing the new DSM-5 personality disorder.

Drs Lee Anna Clark, Ph.D. and W. John Livesley. M.D., Ph.D. serve on the Personality Disorders workgroup of DSM-5 and are charged with helping to craft the future of personality disorder(s). According to Dr. Clark, they must navigate and work out “controversy within the Work Group” (see below). However, would having potential royalties from psychological testing related to the areas you’re commenting on create at least the appearance of impropriety (even if work group members could attend to and navigate any potential personal bias in their self-interest)?

Dr. Lee Anna Clark, Ph.D. currently has a grant from the University of Minnesota Press according to her disclosure statement (its not made clear in the statement if it is related to the SNAP-2): disclosure statement

The University of Minnesota Press is the publisher of Dr. Clark’s personality test, the SNAP-2. There is nothing related to any royalties she may or may not have earned or could potentially earn from the psychological test included in the disclosure statement.

SNAP-2

Per the disclosure statement “Dr. Lee Anna Clark has agreed that, from the time of approval through the publication of DSM-V, projected in 2012,(his/her) aggregate annual income derived from industry sources (excluding unrestricted research grants) will not exceed $10,000 in any calendar year.”

This in no way rules out any potential royalties that may be received for an increase in the use of the SNAP-2 or a revised version for research and clinical practice after the publication of DSM-5 (also DSM-5 has been pushed back to 2013 on an unrelated note).

For applied use, the SNAP-2 manual retails for $20, $1 per booklet with another $50 for the first time it is scored plus 50 cents for each scoring usage. SNAP-2 applied use pricing

Dr. W. John Livesley, M.D., Ph.D.’s disclosure statement only mentions past honoraria from AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, nothing related to any royalties he may or may not have earned from psychological testing (or may potentially earn).

Disclosure statement

“Dr. William J Livesley M.D.,Ph.D. has agreed that, from the time of approval through the publication of DSM-V, projected in 2012, (his/her) aggregate annual income derived from industry sources (excluding unrestricted research grants) will not exceed $10,000 in any calendar year.” However, this certainly does not rule out any royalties from the use of the DAPP-BQ in research and or practice after DSM-5.

John Livesley, MD is noted as the first author of the DAPP-BQ. There are multiple options for pricing of this psychological test:

DAPP BQ

The DAPP-BQ “examination kit” runs $180. This includes 10 fax in answer sheets. If you want 10 more fax in answer sheets that would cost you $160. You can get internet scoring cheaper with a Sigmatesting.com account: http://www.sigmaassessmentsystems.com/prices/dappbq.asp or you could purchase the scoring software for $125 and purchase coupons for additional scoring.

(Although for a limited time you can get a free electronic copy of the manual, it works, I just had mine e-mailed to me with an offer of a free trial of the DAPP-BQ on their online testing platform, SigmaTesting.com- I’m intrigued and will probably check it out.)

However, it is interesting that any royalties received from this are not necessarily viewed as a conflict of interest by the American Psychiatric Association (or perhaps they are unaware).  At least they are not included on these work group member’s disclosure statements.

The SNAP-2 includes “Trait and Temperament” scales and the website selling it notes it is intended for clinical use (not just a research tool).

SNAP scales

The names of the proposed facets are quite similar to the scales of the personality assessments authored by two of the work group members.

The scales of the SNAP-2 and the trait/facet system proposed for DSM-5 DSM-5 proposed facets share many similar names (ignoring correlations and the diagnostic scales and only looking at a nearly direct one to one relationship to scale name and facet and also ignoring the 5 retained personality disorder types):
The SNAP-2 scales and the proposed traits/facets each include:
Negative Emotionality (Negative Temperament), Manipulativeness, Aggression, Self-harm, Eccentric perceptions (Eccentricity), detachment (social detachment), impulsivity.

The DAPP-BQ includes scales with the same name of self-harm, cognitive dysregulation, affective lability (emotional lability), insecure attachment (separation insecurity), intimacy problems (intimacy avoidance), suspiciousness, oppositionality, submissiveness, narcissism, restricted affectivity (restricted expression).

This ignores that some of the other scales can be related in meaning to the additional scales despite having a more different name exs: Low Affiliation, introversion, stimulus seeking vs disinhibition, etc. Its also interesting that many of the names of the facets suggested for DSM-5 are different than those “normal” ones suggested for the Five-Factor Model Personality trait facets provided in Costa & Widiger’s 2nd ed of Personality Disorders and the Five-Factor Model of Personality.

It stands to reason that the authors of the SNAP-2 and DAPP-BQ worked hard on them and hope that their assessments do well regardless of monetary gain. The webpages selling them note they are intended for clinical use and therefore could see a wider audience if a new personality disorder system is implemented with similarly named facets. I have no knowledge of whether or not or how much these two specific authors, Dr. Clark and Dr. Livesley stand to gain from the sale of these psychological tests. However, shouldn’t this be disclosed  on the disclosure statement? This particularly since they have taken a prominent role working on the DSM-5 Personality Disorders workgroup and are authors listed on the DSM5.org website:

Ex: for the revisions of the general criteria for a personality disorder

http://www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevisions/Pages/RationaleforDefinitionandGeneralDiagnosticCriteriaforPersonalityDisorder.aspx

Dr. Livesley appears to stress identity problems in the piece he wrote, which is also assessed by the DAPP-BQ: http://www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevisions/Pages/RationaleforDefinitionandGeneralDiagnosticCriteriaforPersonalityDisorder.aspx

Dr. Clark co-authored the rationale for a six-domain trait dimensional diagnostic system

http://www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevisions/Pages/RationaleforaSix-DomainTraitDimensionalDiagnosticSystemforPersonalityDisorder.aspx

This section clearly spells out that “…the proposed specific trait facets were selected as representative based on existing measures of normal and abnormal personality, as well as recommendations by experts in personality assessment.” Apparently, the DAPP-BQ, and SNAP-2 were valued given the facet names. Sorry, if the only test in this area you had heard of before this was the NEO-PI-R

Some of the decision-makers deciding which “existing measures” to consider and how much weight to give them in relationship to the names of the facets proposed for use in DSM-5 actually authored two of the “existing measures.”

Drs Lee Anna Clark and W. John Livesley were also co-authors on a paper which was published in Psychological Assessment 21(3), 2009, pages 243-255 (An Integrative Dimensional Classification of Personality Disorder). The authors praise both the SNAP-2 and DAPP-BQ in the article and also review the praise of others for these assessments. The authors discuss how the SNAP-2 and DAPP-BQ can be used to assess the maladaptive personality traits which have been proposed in their personality disorder system. On page 247, the authors suggest that “One possible dimensional model for DSM-V is simply to retain the existing DSM-IV-TR diagnoses, but assess them dimensionally rather than categorically (Oldham & Skodol, 2000). However, using scales such as those of the DAPP-BQ and SNAP would provide profile descriptions that would be more differentiated and much less susceptible to construct and scale overlap…” Therefore, it would appear on arguing whether or not to continue to use the DSM-IV personality disorders, the authors used their assessments as the lead in to their argument. They note in the study how the “DAPP-BQ, and the SNAP could be well integrated within a common hierarchical structure in a manner that would be more efficient and easier to apply in general clinical practice than the existing diagnostic categories…” suggesting a desire to replace the personality disorder criteria you can assess with a clinical interview with the abstract personality traits you can best assess by administering the measures that these work group members will gladly sell to you (per score report).

Where is the cut off for medicating “normal” vs maladaptive personality traits?

Its also interesting to note that in this study they suggest the potential for medicating personality traits (not just maladaptive ones). On pg. 249 these work group members appear to “speculate” on potential treatments for personality traits themselves (as opposed to “disorder”). They review a study related to the pharmacological treatment of neuroticism and also note “There might be specific pharmacologic treatment implications for low conscientiousness (e.g. methylphenidates;…)” So basically if you have “low conscientiousness” you may qualify for a prescription for the controlled substance Ritalin. They also suggest that “Perhaps there will never be a pharmacotherapy for high conscientiousness…” (though I’ll speculate that a very high dose of an antipsychotic or benzodiazepine might do the trick).

Also check out Task-Force Member Dr. Andrew Skodol, M.D.’s rationale for types.
http://www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevisions/Pages/RationaleforProposingFiveSpecificPersonalityDisorderTypes.aspx He reviews Rottman et al. (2009) “…these findings indicate that personality traits in the absence of clinical context are too ambiguous for clinicians to interpret: although it may be possible to describe personality disorders in terms of the FFM, mentally translating personality traits back into syndromes or disorders is cognitively challenging.”

Its interesting that in the most recent, Winter, 2010 newsletter of the Society for A Science of Clinical Psychology Dr. Clark writes a column suggesting there continues to be disagreements among the work group on how to proceed with the personality disorders for DSM-5.

In the newsletter she described “controversy within the Work Group” between including types versus traits. She noted that some within the work group are arguing “against the inclusion of types.”

newsletter

She notes that “one easily can become blind to its problems and its complexities” in regards to working on a project such as DSM-5 for an extended period. She noted that Axis II is to be eliminated with Personality Disorder to be made a single diagnosis (thus Personality Disorder, borderline type or Personality Disorder, antisocial/psychopathic type; etc. vs simply Personality Disorder with some as yet to be determined mechanism for coding and/or communicating trait and facet profiles). It was suggested by Dr. Clark that a trait profile could be made for “all clients, regardless of whether they were diagnosed with PD.” She did not say however, that the SNAP-2 should be given to all clients.

The work group members are highly qualified for the tasks which they are doing, however it is strange to me that the disclosure statements focus on “Big Pharma” when at least in this instance, there appears to be no guidance for the field on interpreting what conflicts of interest may exist in relation to potential psychological testing royalties. However, to be clear I have no evidence that there is a conflict of interest or that authoring these psychological tests has played any role in the positions that these work group members have taken in resolving “controversy within the Work Group.”

Can personality disorders be reduced to the sum of their “parts?” Just thinking of myself, I might agree and say yes if the specific parts proposed were the ones included in a psychological test that I wrote and may or may not earn royalties from when DSM-5 is published. My primary question is not “is this happening?” It is ”shouldn’t this be something included on the disclosure statement regardless of whether it actually impacts work group members’ behaviors?”

That is the end of the first blog post. Here is another re-run from later the same year copied exactly from the WayBackMachine at Archive.org (the functionality of some or all of the links may be impacted); this post originally appeared 11/05/2010 at my old blog on WorldWideMentalHealth.com/blog (which no longer exists). I don’t really remember why I wrote this second, condensed version but I assume it was mostly related to updates in the proposed terms for DSM-5.

Personality Disorders and DSM-5 conflicts of interest?

November 5th, 2010

This is actually a condensed version of an earlier post:

Can you author a personality test then author how personality should be “tested” in DSM-5?

Is authoring psychological assessments related to personality disorders a potential conflict of interest for DSM-5 personality disorder workgroup membership? Apparently not. During the current revision process of DSM-5 there has been plenty of talk related to conflicts of interest and the pharmaceutical industry, however has sufficient attention been paid to potential conflicts with psychological testing publishers and the royalties they pay? Two personality disorders workgroup members have authored personality tests that include scales that contain names which are very similar to the names that have now been proposed as potential “facets” constructing the new DSM-5 personality disorder. They are the SNAP-2 and DAPP-BQ.

Drs Lee Anna Clark, Ph.D. and W. John Livesley. M.D., Ph.D. serve on the Personality Disorders workgroup of DSM-5 and are charged with helping to craft the future of the personality disorders. According to Dr. Clark, they must navigate and work out “controversy within the Work Group.”  However, would having potential royalties from psychological testing related to the areas you’re working on create at least the appearance of impropriety?

There is nothing explicit related to any royalties they may or may not have earned or could potentially earn from psychological tests in their disclosure statements. Per their disclosure statements: Drs Clark and Livesley have “agreed that, from the time of approval through the publication of DSM-V, projected in 2012,(his/her) aggregate annual income derived from industry sources (excluding unrestricted research grants) will not exceed $10,000 in any calendar year.” This in no way rules out any potential royalties that may be received for an increase in the use of the SNAP-2 after the publication of DSM-5 (also DSM-5 has been pushed back to 2013). The SNAP-2 retails for a relatively inexpensive price compared to the test authored by another workgroup member.

Dr. W. John Livesley, M.D., Ph.D. is noted as the first author of the DAPP-BQ. There are multiple options for pricing of this psychological test which run in to the hundreds of dollars depending on how you score the test and how many tests you score.  However, it is interesting that any royalties received from this are apparently not viewed as a conflict of interest by the American Psychiatric Association and are not included on the disclosure statement.

The proposed personality facets for DSM-5 and the scales of the SNAP-2 & DAPP-BQ share many similar names. The SNAP-2 scales and the DSM-5 proposed traits & facets each include:
Negative Emotionality (Negative Temperament), Manipulativeness, Aggression, Self-harm, Eccentric perceptions (Eccentricity), detachment (social detachment), impulsivity. The DAPP-BQ includes scales with the same or similar names of self-harm, cognitive dysregulation, affective lability (emotional lability), insecure attachment (separation insecurity), intimacy problems (intimacy avoidance), suspiciousness, oppositionality, submissiveness, narcissism, restricted affectivity (restricted expression). It’s also interesting that many of the names of the facets suggested for DSM-5 by the workgroup are different than those “normal” ones provided in Costa & Widiger’s 2nd ed of Personality Disorders and the Five-Factor Model of Personality.

Drs Lee Anna Clark and W. John Livesley were also co-authors on a paper which was published in Psychological Assessment 21(3), 2009, pages 243-255 (An Integrative Dimensional Classification of Personality Disorder). The authors praise both the SNAP-2 and DAPP-BQ in the article and also review the praise of others for these assessments. The authors discuss how the SNAP-2 and DAPP-BQ can be used to assess the maladaptive personality traits which have been proposed in their personality disorder system. On page 247, the authors suggest that “One possible dimensional model for DSM-V is simply to retain the existing DSM-IV-TR diagnoses, but assess them dimensionally rather than categorically… However, using scales such as those of the DAPP-BQ and SNAP would provide profile descriptions that would be more differentiated and much less susceptible to construct and scale overlap…” Therefore, it would appear on arguing whether or not to continue to use the DSM-IV personality disorders, the authors used the perceived value of the tests they themselves authored as the lead in to their argument. They note in the study how the “DAPP-BQ, and the SNAP could be well integrated within a common hierarchical structure in a manner that would be more efficient and easier to apply in general clinical practice than the existing diagnostic categories…” suggesting a desire to replace the personality disorder criteria with the abstract personality traits you can assess by administering the measures that these work group members might potentially earn royalties on.

In the Winter, 2010 newsletter of the Society for A Science of Clinical Psychology, Dr. Clark wrote a column suggesting there continued to be disagreements among the work group on how to proceed with the personality disorders for DSM-5. She described “controversy within the Work Group” between including types versus traits. She noted that some within the work group are arguing “against the inclusion of types.” She notes that “one easily can become blind to its problems and its complexities” in regards to working on a project such as DSM-5. It was suggested by Dr. Clark that a trait profile could be made for “all clients, regardless of whether they were diagnosed with PD.” This is certainly true as all clients have personalities. However, it is hard to not view this statement with some cynicism with the knowledge that if all clients received their tests, these workgroup members might potentially see an increase in test royalties. It is also concerning that there may be an appearance of a conflict if disagreements centered around the constructs measured by these workgroup members’ tests.

The websites selling their tests note they are intended for clinical use and therefore could potentially have wider use if a new personality disorder system is implemented with similarly named facets to the SNAP-2 and DAPP-BQ. The workgroup members are presumably highly qualified for the tasks which they are doing, however it is strange that the disclosure statements focus on “Big Pharma” when at least in this instance, there appears to be no guidance for the field on interpreting what conflicts of interest may exist in relation to potential psychological testing royalties.  Shouldn’t this be something included on the disclosure statement? This is particularly salient given that there have been clear disagreements in the workgroup as reported by a workgroup member herself. Given the impact of these discussions, shouldn’t we know where people in the workgroup may stand in regards to potential psychological testing royalties?

 

Here ends the re-runs of blog posts (for now). I think for posterity’s sake, after having noticed what I noticed about the ICD-11’s construction process, it would make sense to continue to preserve complaints about conflicts of interest. Amusingly, I remember that I got on W. John Livesley, MD’s test publisher’s email list and at one point they sent a marketing email basically stating something like [paraphrasing] “reflects the current direction of DSM-5” or something like that- they were using the fact that Dr. Livesley was on the personality disorder work group and the proposals were like the test to market the test. Should Dr. Livelsey have resigned due to conflicts of interest? I think so. He did resign but he said it was for other reasons (which you can read here).

Meanwhile, Dr. Lee Ann Clark didn’t resign and it appears she’s helped the official ICD-11 (as a liaison member to the ICD-11 group) turn out much like their back-burnered DSM-5 proposal.

I think in order to understand something we should understand what went in to creating it. I hope this helps you. What do you think: should authors of personality assessments be allowed to author how personality gets assessed?

Thanks again for listening,

Todd

P.S. I haven’t been following it as much lately but based on plenty of the articles and things I’d seen it also looked like certain people involved with the American Psychiatric Association, in cooperation with them, were exploring the idea of creating a personality test of their own to publish along with the DSM-5. Wouldn’t that be funny? Here is the DSM-5 changes to personality disorders and here’s the official psychological assessment instrument you have to purchase and use to assess them- a new psychological assessment published by your friendly neighborhood psychiatric association. It is probably something for someone to watch out for (I’m not going to mislead you; my watch has ended a bit on this).

 

Special thanks to Archive.org: https://archive.org/ and their WayBackMachine for making this blog post possible since I deleted the website the old blog posts were on long, long ago. Here’s a Free Psychologists’ Tech Tip for you- Archive.org is cool and we should donate money to them to help them keep going.

 

You can also read more stuff on the Psychology.news blog if you’re that bored.