ABSTRACT

The major tenets of Millon’s biosocial learning theory of personality development were first outlined in his Modern Psychopathology (1969) text. Subsequent Millon Disorders o f Per­sonality volumes (1981, 1996) extrapolated on the core components of the theory: 1) three primary polarities from which, combinatorially, the recognized DSM and other personality disorders are derived; 2) eight clinical domains that form the classification system with all personality disorders exhibiting prototypal features within each domain; and 3) perpetuating processes-those behaviors, thought patterns, or affective expressions that a person exhibits in interactions with the outside world that reinforce his or her underlying perceptions, beliefs, and experiences. With the Toward a New Personology text (1990), the theory developed and expanded into an evolutionary model, and an entire system of thinking emerged that is most often referred to as the clinical science of personology. Millon (2004) articulated the com­ponents that would be necessary to forge a lasting clinical science. The structure of this entity would include a foundation in the universal laws of nature, a comprehensive explana­tory psychological theory, a derivable taxonomic classification system, a set of theoretically guided and empirically grounded assessment instruments, and therapeutic interventions that logically follow from those test results and guide coordinated treatment efforts. 267

The Millon clinical inventories are embedded within this system. Since the 1970s there have been three versions of the adult Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (1977,1987,1994). Since the 1980s there have been two versions of the adolescent test (Millon Adolescent Per­sonality Inventory, 1982; Millon Adolescent Clinical Inventory, 1993), and now there is an instrument for the pre-adolescent age group, the Millon Pre-Adolescent Clinical Inventory (2005). This chapter provides a context for considering personality patterns and clinical syn­dromes with children and adolescents, describes the construction and validation of the M-PACI and MACI tests, discusses some of their key similarities and differences that appear to be grounded in developmental processes, and provides case examples for each test.