About
In this episode, we revisit Alex Caldwell’s influential contribution on the clinical meaning of the MMPI-2 scales. Rather than treating scale elevations as mere indicators of pathology, Caldwell offers an interpretive framework that understands them as adaptive responses to fundamental psychological threats. Each scale is explored as a strategy of emotional survival, shaped by experiences of bodily danger, loss, pain, relational deprivation, coercion, shock, identity invalidation, and devaluation. This perspective remains highly relevant today, as it allows clinicians to move beyond descriptive assessment and recover the internal logic, coherence, and protective function of patients’ psychological responses.