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Journal of Personality Assessment

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A Review of “Silverstein, M. L. (2013). Personality

assessment in depth: A casebook.”
a
Virginia M. Brabender
a
Institute for Graduate Clinical Psychology, Widener University
Published online: 24 Mar 2014.

To cite this article: Virginia M. Brabender (2014) A Review of “Silverstein, M. L. (2013). Personality assessment in depth: A
casebook.”, Journal of Personality Assessment, 96:5, 576-577, DOI: 10.1080/00223891.2014.893520

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 Journal of Personality Assessment, 96(5), 576–577, 2014
Copyright C Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 0022-3891 print / 1532-7752 online
DOI: 10.1080/00223891.2014.893520
BOOK, SOFTWARE, & TEST REVIEW SECTION
Book Review
Silverstein, M. L. (2013). Personality assessment in depth: A
casebook. New York, NY: Routledge (x + 330 pp).
In the many symposia on teaching and supervising person-
ality assessment held at the convention of the Society for Per-
sonality Assessment, a common lament is the lack of time to
Downloaded by [University of Toledo] at 12:16 09 August 2014
address the interpretation and integration of psychological data.
It seems that addressing administrative and coding issues ab-
sorbs the bulk of academic time. Yet, putting the pieces together
to create a portrait of a human being is a challenging task of
the highest order. Personality Assessment in Depth: A Case-
book by Marshall L. Silverstein teaches us how to do so. Dr.
Silverstein, professor of psychology at Long Island University,
has contributed to the literature two prior books on personality
assessment, Self Psychology and Diagnostic Assessment (1999),
and Disorders of the Self (2007). In this text, his cases offer a
meticulous, detailed, even luxurious exploration of the multiple
meanings of the great fund of data available to the personality
assessor. Silverstein unstintingly plumbs the structural and con-
tent aspects of responses, test-taking behaviors, and extratest
behaviors (e.g., the client’s demeanor when scheduling test-
ing sessions)—both in isolation and in relation to one another.
Through his thorough exploration of the nuances and hues of
words and images, he deftly accomplishes a main purpose in
writing this book—to give content its due in the interpretive
process.
The initial chapter (“Empirically Based and Content-Based
Clinical Interpretation”), which has a historical character, out-
lines the views that have been put forth by major scholars in per-
sonality assessment on the problem of how nomothetic and ideo-
graphic approaches to interpreting test data can be combined.
Silverstein’s history of approaches centers on the Rorschach be-
cause among the many instruments used by the assessor, this
method provides the greatest integrative challenge to the as-
sessor aiming to interpret all aspects of the data. This history
is a helpful refresher for seasoned professionals already famil-
iar with the works of seminal contributors to the conversation
about assessors’ methods of developing hypotheses from differ-
ent types of Rorschach data. For students, however, a chapter
organized by ideas on the matter with the writings of histor-
ical figures used by way of examples might have been more
instructive.
Ensuing chapters each provide an extensive case illustration.
Each chapter revolves around a particular issue, the broad lines
of which are laid out in the beginning of the chapter. This useful
framing of the chapter is followed by a history, which varies
in extensiveness. In some cases (e.g., the case description in
Chapter 2), the reader is likely to long for more details on
576
the client’s everyday functioning, both to get a fuller picture
of the person and to see how this information does or does
not jive with the personality data. Silverstein then interprets
the data yielded by his chosen assessment instruments. He be-
gins his trip through the data with whatever broadband self-
report instrument—Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory–III,
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–A, Minnesota
Multiphasic Personality Inventory–2—he administered. He then
focuses on Human Figure Drawings, which provide a rich inter-
pretive yield in large part because of his masterful questioning
of the client about the drawings.
Proceeding to the Rorschach next, Silverstein bravely inter-
prets the protocols through the lens of both the Comprehensive
System (CS) and Rorschach Performance Assessment System
(R–PAS). Brave is an appropriate descriptor because Silverstein
admits that he, like most personality assessors, is relatively new
to the R–PAS. Yet, he approached the incorporation of these
data with assiduity, securing the assistance of Robert Erard, one
of the system’s originators. Silverstein also enlisted the help of
Irving Weiner with difficult CS scoring calls—a good lesson
for students that we all benefit from consultation! The result of
these exertions is that the reader has a much-needed opportu-
nity to see these systems side by side, the learning from which
is enhanced by Silverstein’s own comparisons of the similar-
ities and differences between the two systems for each of the
cases. Following this structural analysis, Silverstein proceeds
response by response through the protocol, excavating the con-
tent for the array of meanings they hold, a style akin to Schafer’s
fine-grained content analysis. Silverstein then uses the same in-
depth approach for the Thematic Apperception Test responses.
Each case illustration ends with a discussion in which the find-
ings from the empirically based instruments are synthesized fol-
lowed by an analysis of thematic content across the assessment
methods.
Silverstein’s first case (Chapter 2, “Personality Problems As-
sociated With Affect Dysregulation”) of a 30-year-old African
American divorced single mother, Ms. A., offers an extremely
helpful exploration of the problem of subsyndromal disor-
ders, disorders that can be as incapacitating as those meeting
the syndrome threshold. Yet, their subtlety often dooms their
bearer to a history of inadequate, misdirected, or completely
absent treatment. This problem, of course, is a factor motivat-
ing many nosologists to advocate for dimensional criteria for
psychopathology. In this case, the problem under consideration
was an elusive type of affective dysregulation. To get a flavor of
Silverstein’s style of analysis, consider the following comment
on the client’s description of the female she drew as having
wisdom:
 BOOK REVIEW
Ms. A.’s actual word was “a gift,” which may simply have been her way
of denoting something beneficial and adaptive, but it is also possible
that she might have had in mind the word gift in the sense of something
special or unique, perhaps even inflated. Ms. A.’s reference to the girl’s
having a gift together with the entire tone of her description of the
female drawing would be consistent with an impression of entitlement.
(p. 21)
Running throughout all of the cases, as we see in this one, is
Silverstein’s capacity to hold multiple hypotheses in abeyance
as he continues to get evidence, confirming or otherwise, of each
as he proceeds through his analysis. Further, phrases that a less
attuned assessor would dismiss as inconsequential, Silverstein
unpacks for meaning. In this case of Ms. A., Silverstein also
provides beautiful illustrations of the wealth of information
latent in the patterns of interaction between assessor and client.
He is nondefensive in looking at those of his behaviors that con-
tribute to the client’s resistances. For example, he describes how
his doggedness in pursuing determinants evoked this client’s
stubborn withholding of them, thereby revealing the extent of
Downloaded by [University of Toledo] at 12:16 09 August 2014
the client’s effort to protect herself in the face of invitations
to open up about her affective experiences. Silverstein also
interpretively mines his own confusion about the appropriate
shading code for a particular response, a confusion that he saw
as a possible signpost to the client’s own perplexity about her af-
fective experiences. Through this case, not only does the reader
achieve a greater appreciation for the interpretive process itself,
but also the dynamics of a hypomanic personality organization.
One of the most illuminating case presentations for me was
one extended over two chapters. Silverstein provides a case
analysis of Carl at the age of 15 (Chapter 3, “Personality Prob-
lems in Adolescence”) and again at the age of 25 (Chapter 6,
“Continuity and Change From Adolescence to Young Adult-
hood”). At the time of the first assessment, Carl participated in
a course of weekly psychotherapy during his sophomore year
of high school. As Silverstein correctly points out, because the
literature contains few longitudinal case studies involving an
entire battery, we are deprived of the opportunity to see what
personality facets change versus remain stable over time. The
25-year-old Carl demonstrated a greater capacity to regulate his
affective experience and the presence of a distinct coping style
in contrast to his earlier self. However, that younger self gener-
ated a protocol that proved trustworthy in relation to a bevy of
features, including a tendency toward anomalous thought pat-
terns, a capacity to control impulses adequately, and proclivity
toward complex experiences. Indeed, it seemed that more was
the same than otherwise. This type of analysis of full assess-
ments over extended intervals provides invaluable opportunities
to look at the range of interacting diathetic, environmental, and
maturational factors that shape personality.
The two remaining cases that Silverstein presents are also
distinctive. He devotes a chapter to the case of 84-year-old
577
man (Chapter 4, “Personality Problems in Later Life”). This
case gives Silverstein the opportunity to explore from his cus-
tomary psychodynamic perspective aging in interaction with
personality. He discusses how loss and declining abilities ac-
tivate for this client conflicts he had experienced throughout
his life. In reading this case, I was aware of how little the
personality assessment community discusses this developmen-
tal era, particularly from the perspective of a comprehensive
assessment, a neglect of particular concern in relation to Amer-
ica’s changing demographics. Silverstein also uses his back-
ground in neuropsychology to present a particularly fascinating
case (Chapter 5, “Personality Problems Associated With Cere-
bral Dysfunction), that of a woman who, since her childhood,
had suffered from “compromised working memory and exec-
utive functions” (p. 198), which she managed to keep hidden
from virtually everyone—first, parents and teachers, and later
employers—through dint of hard work and resourcefulness. The
major focus of the case analysis was the personality assess-
ment through which Silverstein shows the kinds of adaptations
this client made to cope with her neuropsychological situation,
adaptations that took a profound toll on her emotional and social
life.
Personality Assessment in Depth: A Casebook is an amazing
text that is likely to enrich the perspective of any assessor on
the wealth of insights that an astute assessor can glean from a
battery. This book would serve as a fine resource for graduate
students in advanced electives. They will enjoy Silverstein’s di-
alogue with them throughout the text—he constantly addresses
thoughts they might be having about each case. On the other
hand, for their purposes (and even for those of the seasoned
assessor), a final chapter that addressed anew the issue of inte-
gration of empirical- and content-based approaches would have
been helpful. Surely, the immersion in the five cases provides
insights into how these approaches can work together. An index
also would have been a welcome resource and should be de
rigueur for professional books. Although references are plenti-
ful, they are drawn primarily from the theoretical, not empirical
literature. Make no mistake, however: These limitations are mi-
nor. Overshadowing them is the fact that this text—written by a
true expert in personality assessment—is a gem, not one merely
to adorn a bookcase, but to be retrieved from it again and again.
REFERENCES
Silverstein, M. L. (1999). Self psychology and diagnostic assessment: Identify-
ing selfobject functions through psychological testing. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Silverstein, M. L. (2007). Disorders of the self: A personality-guided approach.
Washington, DC: American Psychological Association Books.
VIRGINIA M. BRABENDER
Institute for Graduate Clinical Psychology,
Widener University