Who is This Training Opportunity For?

This course is intended for qualified practitioners, including forensic, clinical and counselling psychologists, and psychiatrists, who are new to assessing personality disorder using semi-structured clinical interviews. It is suitable for clinicians who already have a general understanding of personality and personality-related difficulties and are looking to develop foundational skills in structured assessment methods.

This course is not suitable for individuals without a recognised practitioner qualification.

Personality disorders and personality problems, more generally, are a challenge to assess. Such conditions are often flagged in people who have had difficult, if not traumatic lives (e.g., they are victims of abuse or neglect), and/or who live in difficult circumstances (e.g., abusive intimate relationships, prison settings). Also, other clinical conditions can sometimes present similarly to personality problems, such as autism and chronic post-traumatic stress disorder, and can be a challenge to disentangle. Semi-structured clinical interviews, more than self-report questionnaires, are thought to give practitioners – and clients – the best opportunity to establish personality structure, any inherent personality problems, the extent of co-morbidity, and the relevance of personality problems to risk.

The Alternative Model for Personality Disorder (AMPD) was first published in section III of DSM-5 in 2013 and has been subject to much research in the years since. The Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-5 AMPD (SCID-5-AMPD) Modules I to III operationalise the evaluation of the alternative model through three semi-structured clinical interviews. Module I is the Level of Personality Functioning Scale (LPFS), a semi-structured clinical interview for assessing the severity of personality problems across the core realms of self and interpersonal functioning. The LPFS is closely aligned to the severity indicators described in the revised personality disorder diagnostic criteria published in the WHO’s 11th edition of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11). Module II is a semi-structured clinical interview for assessing problematic personality traits (negative affectivity, detachment, psychoticism, antagonism and disinhibition). Module III is a semi-structured clinical interview for the assessment of each of the six personality disorders in the AMPD: antisocial, narcissistic, borderline, avoidant, obsessive-compulsive and schizotypal. In a clinical assessment, modules may be administered as stand-alone assessments, or all three modules may be administered together and in order, I through III, as determined by the nature of the evaluation required.

This intensive 3-day online training course will examine the background to personality disorder assessment by semi-structured clinical interview and the AMPD, its evidence base and the parallels with the assessment of personality problems using the ICD-11. It will then examine in detail each of the three modules, how they are structured and implemented in practice, and how assessment findings are determined. The course will also examine how those findings are prepared in written communications with others, including the Courts, either as standalone assessment findings about the nature and degree of personality problems or as part of a broader assessment of risk.

This course is suitable for qualified practitioners with experience of working with people with personality problems who wish to develop their current practice to include established assessments that involve semi-structured clinical interviewing. This course will be relevant to practitioners working in both forensic and criminal justice settings with clients at risk of harm to others or themselves.

Intended audience

Qualified psychological practitioners (mainly clinical and forensic psychologists) and psychiatrists. Trainees may attend, but their practice using the SCID-5-AMPD module interviews must be supervised by an experienced and SCID-5-AMPD-trained practitioner.

Learning objectives

1. To inform attendees about the DSM-5 and ICD-11 organisation of personality problems, and their operationalisation in the form of assessment tools and guidance
2. And to encourage attendees to see the value added to a personality assessment when using an established semi-structured clinical interview format
3. To introduce attendees to the SCID-5-AMPD and provide them with experience in the use of Modules I to III
4. To guide attendees in their use of clinical interviewing skills when using Modules I to III, as well as in their communication of the observations made
5. Specifically, to discuss how the links between personality problems and risk can be explored in assessment and described in report form

Post-training, to provide one session of online supervision for attendees during their first applications of the Modules