MMPI profiles associated with outcomes of intensive psychotherapeutic counseling with youthful first offender prison inmates

Abstract

A sample of 50 first offender prison inmates age 16-20, who were considered at the time of their admission to prison to have the potential for adequate institutional adjustment, were subjected to an intensive psychotherapeutic counseling program for the entire period of their incarceration. The conceptual basis for the program being that institutionally adjusted youth inmates, although they may be receptive to therapeutic intervention, often pass through the system with their mental health problems unaddressed. The MMPI pre and post test results of the youths placed in the treatment program were compared to the MMPI pre and post test results of a control group of a similarly selected young prisoners, who also appeared to have a potential for adequate institutional adjustment. The controls or non-treatment individuals demostrated no pre-post significant mean scale changes in their MMPI test results; whereas, the experimental or treatment goup members presented significant mean scale improvement on 10 of the 15 clinical and additional MMPI scales employed in the study. The treatment sample produced significant improvement on measures of anxiety, depression, overconcern with physical functioning, social alienation, antisocial life style, social prejudice, sense of responsibility, personal adaptability, attitude toward law and order, and the potential to continue criminal activity upon release from incarceration. These positive changes in measures of personality and social adaptation as demonstrated by the treatment sample were considered to be subject to regression; therefore, it was felt that further reinforcement from community-based resources would be requred if a significant long-range success rate for the treatment sample was to be achieved.