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When clinicians utilized systematic measures of dimensional traits their agreement with client was higher than reported in past studies. Furthermore, clients reported significantly more PD pathology than was noted by their therapists suggesting concerns about invalid self-reports due to underreporting have been overstated. (PsycINFO Database Record

The use of knowledgeable informants is a particularly valuable tool for the diagnosis and assessment of personality disorder (PD). This review details the use of one particular type of informant-practicing clinicians-in PD research. We detail a wide variety of studies that have employed clinicians as an assessment source, including those focused on interrater agreement, comparative validity with other methods, cognitive factors of diagnosis, and opinion surveys. We demonstrate limitations, such as potential biases and limited convergent validity, which caution against the assumption that clinicians' ratings should be considered a gold-standard. Nonetheless, we also highlight the potential value of research that focuses on clinicians due to its external validity to real-world practice settings. Finally, we outline several issues to consider when sampling clinicians, such as participation rate and sample size, and call for future research that collects ratings from clinicians using systematic, well-validated measures. (PsycINFO Database Record

Purpose of Review:The validity of self-ratings of personality pathology often are questioned because personality disorders (PD) historically have been viewed as being characterized by poor insight. However, recent research indicates that PD self-ratings are valid in many ways and have significant clinical utility. Building upon this growing literature, our goal here is to provide practical discussion of how incorporating dimensional PD ratings into assessment protocols can benefit diagnosis and treatment. Recent findings: We first review evidence suggesting that PD self-ratings are particularly useful for assessing constructs related to individuals' own subjective experiences (e.g., propensities for experiencing negative mood states). We then highlight research indicating that PD self-ratings (a) change positively with intervention and (b) meaningfully inform diagnosis, treatment planning, and treatment outcome. Finally, we illustrate how freely available, well-validated self-report PD measures can be used to efficiently obtain clinically useful information in a manner comprehensible to both practitioners and patients. Summary: Self-ratings of personality pathology are valid and useful in many ways and can be efficiently incorporated into assessment protocols. Key future directions for advancing knowledge of self-report PD assessment include examining the extent to which self-ratings of antagonism-a core PD trait-are accurate across contexts.

What do psychology doctorate programs require and prefer in their master’s level applicants? Do the programs value students’ graduate experiences during and postadmission? Doctoral programs’ ( n = 221) responses to an online survey showed that most required letters of recommendation, personal statements, Graduate Records Examination scores, and undergraduate grade point average. These credentials, interviewing skills, and student–mentor research match are crucial to admission decisions. However, clinical PhD, counseling PhD, clinical and counseling PsyD, practice subfields (e.g., school psychology), and research subfields (e.g., social psychology) evaluated differently 8 of the 26 credentials. Master’s-level applicants benefit more than bachelor’s-level applicants when beginning their doctoral work (e.g., having their master’s theses waived), but the advantages vary by subfields. Implications and recommendations for doctoral applicants are discussed.