4 ADDICTIONS - THE MMPI AND DISCRIMINANT FUNCTION-ANALYSIS

Over the past twenty years many MMPI studies of substance abuse have i nvestigated the complex relationship between personality profile and d rug of choice. This work has repeatedly established that alcoholics, h eroin, cocaine and polydrug addicts share 4-2/2-4 (Psychopathy and Dep ression) or 4-8/8-4 (Psychopathy and Thought Disorder) MMPI profiles, but that the substance abuse populations differ in the plane of severi ty in that general profile. The alcoholics occupy the least disturbed sector, the polydrug abusers the most disturbed level and the heroin a nd cocaine addicts positions of moderate disturbance. The vast majorit y of studies, however, cite only group means to buttress their conclus ions. Our work probed more deeply into the data using Discriminant Fun ction Analysis. With this methodology we discovered important differen ces between the groups, previously hidden, which may carry differentia l treatment implications.