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Assess personality disorders with descriptive adjectives

Robert J. Craig Ph.D., ABPP

About the PDACL * Manual and Reproduction * Scales * Sample Items

The Personality Disorders Adjective Checklist (PDACL) is a brief screening measure for the assessment of personality disorders. It consists of 175 adjectives and adjectival phrases the client uses to describe their attributes.

The PDACL is unique in personality disorder assessment in that the number of items checked is unspecified so that adjectives selected are ones that are salient for the person being evaluated. Administration time varies from five to seven minutes.

Please Note: Mind Garden does not "qualify" customers on whether they can purchase particular products. The PDACL is a clinical psychological assessment and as such we recommend that it only be used by practitioners or researchers who have been trained in clinical psychological assessment.

Translations of this instrument are available. Click here to see a complete list of translations, along with more details on our translation policy.

Assessment Scales

The PDACL offers a full sphere of Personality Disorder types. 

Example Items

Directions: Below is a list of words that are sometimes used to describe people. Mark the box next to the word if the word describes the way you generally are and leave it blank if it does not describe you. If there is a word you do not understand, then leave it blank. Caution: There are some trick words in this list to see if you are paying attention – so pay attention. You may now begin.
1.	Abused	29.	Controlling	57.	Emotional
2.	Abusive	30.	Criminal	58.	Enthusiastic
3.	Accommodating	31.	Cruel	59.	Entitled
4.	Accusing	32.	Demanding	60.	Exceptional

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FROM THE PDACL MANUAL

"The Personality Disorder Adjective Checklist (PDACL) is a self-report instrument, using adjective checklist methodology that is designed to measure personality disorders.....[DSM-IV] defines a personality disorder as "an enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectations of the individual's culture, is pervasive and inflexible, has an onset in adolescence or early adulthood, is stable over time, and leads to distress or impairment" (629).

Personality disorders have increased in focus and prominence within psychiatry and clinical psychology because:

• DSM-IV requires an evaluation on AXIS II (e.g., personality disorders),
• it is now recognized that personality disorders can affect the course and treatment of Axis I disorders (e.g., clinical syndromes), and because
• they can be the focus of treatment in their own right (Millon, 1984). Thus the need for reliable and valid assessment instruments in this area of inquiry has become pre-potent among clinicians and researchers."

--Robert J. Craig, Personality Disorders Adjective Check List Manual

RELATED PRODUCTS

Adjective Check List

Harrison G. Gough & Alfred B. Heilbrun, Jr.

Ways of Coping Questionnaire

Susan Folkman & Richard S. Lazarus

The California Q-Sort for Adults

Jack Block

REFERENCES

Robert J. Craig's email address:

Additional information about a few of Robert Craig's books:

• Personality-Guided Forensic Psychology
• Counseling the Alcohol and Drug Dependent Client: A Practical Approach
• Assessing Substance Abusers With the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI)

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