To delineate homogenous subgroups among hospitalized opiate addicts, a multivariate correlational clustering technique was applied to the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory profiles of 1,500 addicts, subdivided into 10 subsamples (5 for each sex) representing four different categories of admission into treatment (civilly committed, volunteers, probationers, prisoners). Within each subsample, two homogeneous and replicable profile types were isolated. Type I (33% of all addicts) showed elevations on Scales 2, 4, and 8, suggesting marked subjective distress, nonconformity, and disturbed thinking. The much smaller Type II (about 7% of addicts) showed a single peak on Scale 4. Sixty percent of addicts thus were unclustered. The two basic types, however, were very effectively discriminated on a variety of other psychometric indexes and were consistent with the two major profile types found among alcoholics in prior research. Recent psychometric characterizations of hospitalized opiate addicts, employing the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), have cast doubt on the relevance of the stereotype of sociopathy (the 4-9 or 9-4 profile) to addicts as a group (Berzins, Ross, & Monroe, 1971). A grand mean MMPI profile with peaks on Scales 4, 2, and 8, obtained in a sample of over 800 male addicts, for example, placed the addicts' nonconformity in the context of acute subjective distress and disturbed thinking. It is important, however, to determine the principal homogeneous subgroups of addicts whose characteristics may or may not be consistent with overall group profiles. The number, size, and nature

Prior clinical studies have suggested that therapists' A-B status interacts with patient diagnosis in determining the outcome of psychotherapy (A > B with schizophrenics; B > A with neurotics), but this interaction hypothesis has been studied almost exclusively in laboratory analogues, not in actual clinical practice. To discern whether the hypothesis would apply to brief psychotherapy in a college clinic, the "outcomes" obtained by three A and three B therapists with their schizoid and neurotic patients (N = 57) were examined in a 2 X 2 factorial design. Analyses of variance computed for three dependent measures based on therapists' and patients' posttherapy ratings revealed considerable support for the hypothesis, primarily with respect to therapists' appraisals of their own effectiveness (interaction, p < .02). The B therapists also obtained much lower improvement and rapport ratings from schizoid than neurotic patients, whereas A therapists obtained equally satisfactory results with both. The interaction hypothesis characterized A-B performance differences better than an alternate "prognostic" hypothesis tested via the inclusion of two additional diagnostic categories (adjustment reaction, passive-aggressive personality).

No abstract

The A-B therapist "type" distinction, usually made on the basis of a small set of interest items, has proven predictive of therapist-patient compatibility in several clinical and analogue studies. To assess the personality dimensions involved in the A-B distinction among undergraduate males (# = 223), their A-B scale scores were related to the 22 variables of Jackson's Personality Research Form. Multiple discriminant analyses and factor analyses strongly supported the hypothesis that A-B status is explicable in personality terms: so-called A-type Ss (predicted to be compatible with schizoid patients) were characterized by cautious self-expression, social ineptness, and a restricted cognitive scope; B-type Ss (presumably compatible with neurotic patients) appeared socially ascendant and "open" to complex experiences. These results were supported by a cross-validation study of professional 5s (N = SO). As in prior research, the variables differentiating A-B statuses appeared to involve a prominent "masculinity-femininity" component.The distinction between "A" and "B" therapists originated in a series of clinical studies by Betz and Whitehorn (reviewed by Betz, 1967). These investigators found that a small set of items from the Strong Vocational Interest Blank reliably differentiated therapists who achieved high success rates in treating hospitalized schizophrenics ("A" therapists) from other ("B") therapists who performed less adequately with such patients. In treating neurotic outpatients, however, the B-type therapists outperformed the A-type therapists (McNair, Callahan, & Lorr, 1962). The Therapist X Patient interaction effect suggested by these studies has not received further examination in clinical settings; rather, a substantial number of analogue studies have been conducted which, in whole or in part, support the proposition that A-type Ss (generally, male undergraduates) interact more compatibly with schizoid, dis-1 Requests for reprints should be sent to Juris I.

Research with the A-B therapist "type" variable has included many analogue studies in which A and B undergraduates have been assumed to be personologically similar to A and B professionals. To assess whether this "invariance assumption" is tenable across samples varying in vocational commitment/ training, sex, education, and adjustment,, the present study cross-validated the personality correlates of A-B status (identified in a prior study with Jackson's Personality Research Form) across five new samples. A and B 5s among 94 male professionals, 661 male undergraduates, 114 college clinic patients, and 720 female undergraduates were compared. Univariate and multivariate analyses lent strong support to the invariance assumption: in every sample, B-type 5s exceeded A-type Ss on scales measuring risk taking, dominance, change, sentience, and "counterdependence."1 Requests for reprints should be sent to Juris I.