Personality Assessment and Diagnosis. A Clinical and Experimental Technique: By Edward Bennett, Ph.D. New York: The Ronald Press Co., 1961. 287 pp.

This book does not fulfil its intention. The technique is described as a 'much needed bridge between the requirements of experimental and clinical psychologists'. The method is that of eliciting evidence of subjective feelings by means of multiple forced-choice judgments among a series of emotion-laden terms. The early chapters on mental health and maladjustment are shallow and superficial; they are followed by detailed descriptions of the technique, by which the subject is helped 'to express his subjective feelings'. The author claims that the only difference between traditional procedures of psychiatric and casework interviews and this device is that of quantification. In the discussion of the results, the reader is overwhelmed by a mass of data, much of it trivial and distorted. The application of this 'polydiagnostic' method is described in several case histories and a research project. While the approach is vigorously objective, the findings are without psychological significance and the social and clinical implications are generalized and naïve.

Current research emphasizes the need for translating clinical findings into quantitative data, subject to statistical analysis. However, experience has demonstrated that this can be accomplished within the framework of ego psychology, without overmathematical assessment and the destruction of basic principles.