Jonathan Shedler

• PhD
• University of Colorado Hospital

Psychoanalysis has an image problem. The dominant narrative in the mental health professions and in society is that psychoanalysis is outmoded, discredited, and debunked. What most people know of it are pejorative stereotypes and caricatures dating to the horse and buggy era. The stereotypes are fueled by misinformation from external sources, inclu...

Researchers have proposed replacing the current system for diagnosing personality disorders with a dimensional trait model. Proposed trait models have been derived primarily from data provided by untrained lay informants (often via self-report questionnaires) using item sets derived from lay conceptions of personality. An alternative is to derive p...

Viene presentato un sistema diagnostico della patologia di personalitŕ derivato empiricamente, clinicamente rilevante e di agevole uso quotidiano. Un campione randomizzato di 1.201 psichiatri e psicologi clinici statunitensi ha descritto un proprio paziente, selezionato in modo casuale e affetto da un disturbo della personalitŕ, utilizzando la Shed...

The Shedler-Westen Assessment Procedure (SWAP) is a personality assessment instrument designed for use by expert clinical assessors. Critics have raised questions about its psychometrics, most notably its validity across observers and situations, the impact of its fixed score distribution on research findings, and its test-retest reliability. We re...

The authors describe a system for diagnosing personality pathology that is empirically derived, clinically relevant, and practical for day-to-day use. A random national sample of psychiatrists and clinical psychologists (N=1,201) described a randomly selected current patient with any degree of personality dysfunction (from minimal to severe) using...

Empirische Daten belegen die Wirksamkeit psychodynamischer Psychotherapie. Effektgrößen für psychodynamische Psychotherapie sind so groß wie die für andere Therapien berichteten Effektgrößen, für die aktiv als „empirisch gestützt“ und „evidenzbasiert“ geworben worden ist. Außerdem erzielen Patienten, die eine psychodynamische Therapie machen, einen...

Responds to the comments by D. McKay (see record 2011-02175-008); B. D. Thombs, L. R. Jewett, and M. Bassel (see record 2011-02175-009); M. D. Anestis, J. C. Anestis, and S. O. Lilienfeld (see record 2011-02175-010); and W. W. Tryon and G. S. Tryon (see record 2011-02175-011) on the current author's original article, "The efficacy of psychodynamic...

Psychodynamic therapy has been caricatured as navel-gazing, but studies show powerful benefits

Empirical evidence supports the efficacy of psychodynamic therapy. Effect sizes for psychodynamic therapy are as large as those reported for other therapies that have been actively promoted as “empirically supported” and “evidence based.” In addition, patients who receive psychodynamic therapy maintain therapeutic gains and appear to continue to im...

Narcissistic personality disorder has received relatively little empirical attention. This study was designed to provide an empirically valid and clinically rich portrait of narcissistic personality disorder and to identify subtypes of the disorder. A random national sample of psychiatrists and clinical psychologists (N=1,201) described a randomly...

This study compares the clinical relevance and utility of five dimensional diagnostic systems for personality disorders that have been proposed for the forthcoming edition of DSM (DSM-V): (1) a criteria counting model based on current DSM-IV diagnostic criteria; (2) a prototype matching model based on current DSM-IV diagnostic criteria; (3) a proto...

This article describes the Shedler-Westen Assessment Procedure (SWAP), a personality assessment instrument intended for use by clinically experienced interviewers, designed to maximize both psychometric precision and clinical relevance. The article focuses on the latest edition of the instrument, the SWAP–II; its use in 2 recently completed large-s...

There is a schism between science and practice in understanding and assessing personality. Approaches derived from the research laboratory often strike clinical practitioners as clinically naive and of dubious clinical relevance. Approaches derived from clinical observation and theory often strike empirical researchers as fanciful speculation. In t...

Decisions about whether to include depressive, passive-aggressive, sadistic, and self-defeating disorders in Axis II have been made difficult by a relative dearth of data. We report the results of a study identifying potential defining features of these diagnoses and assessing their distinctiveness from other Axis II personality disorders (PDs). A...

Researchers have traditionally relied on self-report questionnaires to assess psychological well-being, but such measures may be unable to differentiate individuals who are genuinely psychologically healthy from those who maintain a facade or illusion of mental health based on denial and self-deception. Prior research suggests that clinically deriv...

Virtually no research has tested alternatives to the diagnostic method used since DSM-III, which requires decisions about the presence/absence of individual diagnostic criteria, followed by counting symptoms and applying cutoffs (the count/cutoff method). This study tested an alternative, prototype matching procedure designed to simplify diagnosis....

Many studies document the efficacy of psychotherapy for acute syndromes such as depression, but less is known about personality change in patients treated for personality pathology. The Shedler-Westen Assessment Procedure (SWAP-200; Westen & Shedler, 1999a, 1999b) is an assessment tool that measures a broad spectrum of personality constructs and is...

Personality pathology constitutes a major form of psychopathology in adolescents. To examine the reliability and validity of a Q-sort instrument for assessing adolescent personality pathology designed for clinically experienced informants. A sample of 294 randomly selected psychiatrists and psychologists each provided data on a current patient, age...

Researchers have advocated replacing the DSM-IV classification of personality disorders with an alternative diagnostic system based on the five-factor model. This study evaluates the clinical comprehensiveness of the five-factor model and addresses the broader question of how many factors, and which factors, are necessary to understand personality...

Personality disorder researchers are currently evaluating a range of potential solutions to problems with the DSM-IV diagnostic categories. This article proposes changes to the diagnostic categories and criteria based on empirical findings from a national sample of patients with personality disorder diagnoses. The Shedler-Westen Assessment Procedur...

Self-report mental health scales cannot distinguish between genuine mental health and the facade or illusion of mental health created by psychological defenses. Shedler, Mayman, and Manis (1994) demonstrated that experienced clinicians can differentiate genuine from illusory mental health using the Early Memory Test, and that illusory mental health...

The study of personality pathology in adolescence is in its infancy. This article examined the applicability and limits of DSM-IV axis II personality disorder diagnoses in adolescents, assessed the validity of a method for assessing adolescent personality pathology, and began to develop an empirically grounded classification. A total of 296 randoml...

Many psychoanalysts believe it is impossible to conduct empirical research without eviscerating or trivializing psychoanalytic constructs, and past research efforts have all too often reinforced this view. A new method for studying personality and personality pathology is presented that challenges such beliefs. This method, the Shedler-Westen Asses...

Many case-finding instruments are available to help primary care physicians (PCPs) diagnose depression, but they are not widely used. Physicians often consider these instruments too time consuming or feel they do not provide sufficient diagnostic information. Our study examined the validity and utility of the Quick PsychoDiagnostics (QPD) Panel, an...

The current diagnostic system for personality disorders (PD) has a number of problems that may require a thorough revision for DSM-V. This article (a) outlines problems with the current taxonomy that suggest the need for a different approach to PD diagnosis that preserves the strengths of the current system while addressing some inherent weaknesses...

Personality pathology is difficult to measure. Current instruments have problems with validity and rely on a direct-question format that may be inappropriate for the assessment of personality. In addition, they are designed specifically to address current DSM-IV categories and criteria, which limits their utility in making meaningful revisions of t...

The DSM-IV classification of personality disorders has not proven satisfying to either researchers or clinicians. Incremental changes to categories and criteria using structured interviews may no longer be useful in attempting to refine axis II. An alternative approach that quantifies clinical observation may prove useful in developing a clinically...

The measurement of personality disorders (PDs) has proven to be a difficult enterprise. This article describes two initial studies of the validity and reliability of the Shedler-Westen Assessment Procedure (SWAP), a Q-sort procedure that quantifies clinical judgment, which may be useful both for assessing personality pathology and for empirically r...

This article describes the development of, and preliminary findings with, the Affect Regulation and Experience Q-Sort (the AREQ), an observer-based assessment of affect regulation and experience. In Study 1, 31 clinicians provided Q-sort descriptions of 90 patients. Factor scores correlated in predicted ways with criteria such as suicide attempts a...

Replies to comments by H. J. Eysenck, S. E. Taylor and J. D. Brown, and T. E. Joiner (see PA, Vols 5447; 5471; and 5454, respectively) on the argument by J. Schedler et al (see record 1994-09623-001) that standard mental health scales may not distinguish genuine from illusory mental health. Methodological issues (e.g., clinical judgment vs self-re...

Replies to comments by H. J. Eysenck, S. E. Taylor and J. D. Brown, and T. E. Joiner (see PA, Vols 5447; 5471; and 5454, respectively) on the argument by J. Schedler et al (see record 1994-09623-001 ) that standard mental health scales may not distinguish genuine from illusory mental health. Methodological issues (e.g., clinical judgment vs self-re...

It is argued that researchers' reliance on "objective" mental health scales and disregard for clinical judgment has led to many mistaken conclusions. Specifically, standard mental health scales appear unable to distinguish between genuine mental health and the facade or illusion of mental health created by psychological defenses. Evidence is presen...

The availability heuristic has been widely cited as an important factor in the judgment process. However, the evidence that availability is important in judging category size is not fully convincing. Moreover, several reports suggest that availability may not be a factor in judging frequency of occurrence. Path analysis was used in 3 experiments de...

The relation between psychological characteristics and drug use was investigated in subjects studied longitudinally, from preschool through age 18. Adolescents who had engaged in some drug experimentation (primarily with marijuana) were the best-adjusted in the sample. Adolescents who used drugs frequently were maladjusted, showing a distinct perso...

The relation between psychological characteristics and drug use was investigated in subjects studied longitudinally, from preschool through age 18. Adolescents who had engaged in some drug experimentation (primarily with marijuana) were the best-adjusted in the sample. Adolescents who used drugs frequently were maladjusted, showing a distinct perso...

Respondents evaluated the thought disorder in vocabulary definitions obtained from patients at Central Hospital and Metropolitan Hospital. To establish extreme stereotypes, the most disturbed definitions were presented as deriving from one hospital, whereas the benign (nonpathological) definitions seemed to come from the other hospital. Moderate st...

Two studies with 108 undergraduates investigated vivid information and its impact on social judgment and the availability heuristic and its role in mediating vividness effects. In Study 1, Ss listened to a tape recording that described a woman who lived with her 7-yr-old son. Ss then heard arguments about the woman's fitness as a parent and were as...

goal in this chapter is to build a bridge between psychodynamic and empirical perspectives by providing a systematic procedure for incorporating psychodynamic clinical judgment into empirical mental health research / the Early Memory Test (EMT) has a long history among psychodynamic clinicians but remains largely unknown among academic researchers...

Muchos psicoanalistas creen que es imposible conducir la investigación empírica sin eviscerar o trivializar las construcciones psicoanalíticas, y los afanes investigadores del pasado han reforzado con demasiada frecuencia esta opinión. Se presenta un nuevo método para estudiar la personalidad y la patología de personalidad que desafía tales creenci...