Bearing in mind that I confess to be totally ignorant of this subject, can one of you, who does understand, explain to me why one would give a test based on persons already in therapy to a person who is undiagnosed and untreated. I suppose there is an answer but in my confusion it appears to be apples and oranges at this time. In other words why assume she fits into the test structure for patients versus the normal population? Call me utterly confused.
That's a complex question. There are many different psych tests, all of which have slightly different purposes and test slightly different characteristics. Some practitioners only use what they are trained on and most familiar with, even if there are "better" other tests. (And some may "cherry pick" the use of certain tests with the hope that they might show something specific that could be highlighted in a court case, lol!)
Let me give an example of IQ testing in children. To give a broad example, there are numerous "IQ" tests, some for children, some for adults. Some are designed to be broad screening tests, and administered in group settings, such as public schools. Some public schools don't have a lot of time or money to individually test every kid, so they initially may choose to purchase and use a screening exam that can be administered by a teacher to a group. These might be used to identify broadly who should be given an individual IQ test, which is more expensive to administer, and requires a differently trained practitioner.
Some practitioners are more familar with certain tests and are trained to administer and score them, such as the Wechsler Intelliegence Scale for Children. They will probably typically default to whatever their "favorite" test is for an initial evaluation (or what the policies state will be used). However, another test, such as the Stanford Binet, may be more appropriate for testing certain children whose scores on the more common Wechsler are considered not valid or interpretable due to something like a learning disability. The practitioner should refer the person for additional, more specific testing, if the results on the first test fall into certain patterns (according to the scoring and interpretation instructions for the test.)
This is a greatly oversimplified explanation above, but basically,
there is more reliability in a diagnosis of "something" when there is agreement between instruments (similar scores on different tests). Reproducible results across differently validated instruments (tests). And some instruments are better for certain people or certain conditions than others.
Personally, I can't believe Samuels DIDN'T give Jodi an MMPI. Good grief-- nearly everyone evaluated by someone in the mental health system is given an MMPI. It is a basic and widely administered test-- and is given to prisoners during their first week or 2 in prison during the evaluation period to determine their level of custody, etc. He probably should have given her an IQ test as well, along with several other instruments. I'm not a psych mental health person, but it sure seems to me that Samuels was
very minimalist in what he (cherry picked) to give her for testing. It was certainly not a comprehensive evaluation-- not like what she would have received if the defense was claiming insanity and Jodi was put thru the battery of testing for that.
And it DOES seem he cheaped out and re-used a test set, instead of ponying up the small amount of $$ to buy new copies of the test. That alone is an ethical violation, imo. Unbelievable that he would try that in a case of this high profile. His credibility is about zero on the stand today, imo.
Added: He also said he only administered the PTSD instrument 15 times in his career! That is not very many times, for someone who claims to be focused on treating a population with PTSD. But I have to keep reminding myself that he was probably the BEST (only) psychologist they could find to support their defense theory. And they may have also been limited in the budget they could pay a psychologist/ mental health experty, and limited to the state of AZ, if she is indigent. AZLawyer or another AZ atty could address those limitations better.
