Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 9, No. 2, 1992, Page 62
Pre-Post Changes
Table 3 reveals that there were statistically significant differences between Time I and Time
11 scores on 15 Millon scales. The MANOVA (effect-time) did reveal highly significant mean
differences between the MCMI-I pre- and post-treatment scores, Hotellings F (1, 20) =
4.11, p.001. The only scales that did not show a significant effect change, were Obsessive-
Compulsive, Paranoid, Hypomania, Drug Abuse, and Psychotic Delusions. All scales showing
significant change moved downward from Time I to Time 11, except for Histrionic,
Narcissistic, and Antisocial, which moved up. The elevation in these three scales in a
treatment study is not unusual in that successful treatment tends to increase self-esteem,
self-expressiveness, and to disinhibit inappropriate self-restraints (McMahon et al., 1986).
Among those scales that declined, the decline ranged from .4 to 1.0 standard deviations.
Psychotic Thinking declined from 54 to 42, a drop of one standard deviation. Dependent
declined from 72 to 52, or .74 SD. Somatoform and Negativistic-Aggressive declined about
.4 SD and Schizoid about .5 SD. The other scales all declined between .6 and .7 SD. The
effect size measures (partial eta squared) on scales with the highest BRs at Time I were as
follows: Dependent (.339), Somatoform (.100), Anxiety (.183), Histrionic (.138),
Narcissistic (.079), Compulsive/Conforming (.014), Passive Aggressive/Negativistic (.152),
Dysthyrnia (.172). All ANOVAs were significant, except for Compulsive/Conforming.
Table 4 Percentage of Subjects with a Base-rate Score of 75 or Higher on MCMI-I
Scales for Pre- and Post-treatment (n =66)
MCMI-I Scale Group
Pre-Treat. Post-Treat.
Schizoid-Asocial 17.9% 1.5%
Avoidant 23.9 7.5
Dependent-Submissive 58.2 28.4
Histrionic-Gregarious 32.8 43.3
Narcissistic 16.4 31.3
Antisocial-Aggressive 3.0 1.5
Compulsive-Conforming 10.4 14.9
Psv. Agg.-Negatvst. 25.4 11.9
Schizotypal-Schizoid 3.0 1.5
Borderline-Cycloid 13.4 9.0
Paranoid 13.4 3.0
Anxiety 52.2 26.9
Somatoform 35.8 19.4
Hypomanic 7.5 6.0
Dysthymia 47.8 25.4
Alcohol Abuse 6.0 1.5
Drug Abuse 9.0 4.5
Psychotic Thinking 4.5 0.0
Psychotic.Depression 0.0 4.5
Psychotic Delusion 4.5 0.0

Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 9, No. 2, 1992, Page 63
Table 4 also presents the frequency and percent of subjects with BR‟S above 75 on the
MCMI-I scales prior to treatment and after treatment. With the exception of the Histrionic,
Narcissistic, Antisocial-aggressive, and Psychotic Depression scales, the percentage of
subjects with BR‟s above 75 drops by as much as over 50%. The rise in the above listed
personality scales is not unusual and has been documented in other studies as a positive
treatment effect (McMahon et al., 1986).
Profile Stability
Of the 66 subjects who took the MCMI-I at Time I and Time II, 47 out of 66 subjects
(71.2%) demonstrated a personality profile shift, as indicated by changes on the two
highest points on the first eight scales from Time I to Time II. At Time I, 32 of 66 (48.4%)
subjects had Dependent as the highest scale. At Time II, 26 of the 32 subjects (81.2%) with
Dependent as the highest scale showed entirely different profiles, that is, the two highest
scales were not in the same rank order after treatment. Indeed, in the majority of cases the
highest Time I scales were no longer the highest scales at Time II. For example, of those
subjects for whom Dependent was the second highest personality scale score at Time 1, 5
out of 5 (100%) had entirely different profiles on the two highest scales at Time II. The
overall stability of the two highest scales for Time I to Time II was only 22%. This contrasts
to Hyer et al.‟s (1989) study showing pre- to post-treatment stability of 84% on the two
highest personality scales.
In the current study only one scale, Drug Addiction, had a Time I to Time II coefficient
above r =.60 (see Table 5). Six of the first eight personality scales had the lowest
coefficients reported in the literature on the MCMI. On the clinical scales the current study
reported the lowest coefficients in five of the nine scales. The overall average for both the
personality, clinical, and total MCMI scales was the lowest reported in the literature thus far.