MCMI Results for Batterers: A Response to Gondolf

Gondolph [Gondolf, E. W. (1999). J. Fam. Violence 14: 1–17] recently published MCMI-III results on men in batterer treatment groups that appeared to indicate much lower levels of psychopathology than previous studies. Gondolph concluded from these results that the existence of an abusive personality was debatable. Gondolph is mistaken in drawing conclusions about the abusive personality based solely on MCMI results. The assessment of the abusive personality is not based on this instrument. Also, respondents in Gondolph's study had extremely high Desirability scores on the MCMI-III, so even his estimates of the incidence of personality disorder are questionable. Current assessment of personality disorder has begun to steer away from self-report instruments such as the MCMI-III; this practice should be utilized in assessing batterers.