ABSTRACT

What major advances have occurred in the assessment of psychopathology over the past 25 years? Many psychologists would argue that the most important breakthroughs include the development of explicit diagnostic criteria, the growing popularity of structured interviews, and the proliferation of brief measures tailored for use by mental health professionals conducting empirically supported treatments (e.g., Antony & Barlow, 2002). Others would disagree. Even an advance that most mental health professionals have embraced, the use of explicit criteria for making psychiatric diagnoses, has been challenged (Beutler & Malik, 2002). For example, Weiner (2000) referred to the current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV, American Psychiatric Association, 1994) as “a psychometrically shaky, inferential nosological scheme involving criteria and definitions that change from one revision to the next” (p. 436). (See also Widiger, this book.) Controversies abound in the domain of assessment, and most beginning readers of this literature are left with little guidance regarding how to navigate the murky scientific waters.