A Critique of the Reliability of the Millon Behavioral Medicine Diagnostic with Bariatric Surgery Candidates: A Rebuttal to Stephen Strack

Excerpt

We welcome scholarly dialogue regarding psychological assessment with bariatric surgery patients and appreciate the opportunity to respond to Dr. Stacks’ reply to our article. We believe that such discourse furthers science and is ideally conducted among objective, disinterested parties. In this vein, we point out that Dr. Strack: is a co-author with Dr. Millon’s team on another Millon inventory; appears on the official website for Theodore Millon (http://​www.​millon.​net/​) as a speaker under their sponsorship; is a Board member for The Institute for Advanced Studies in Personology and Psychopathology (IASPP), which is described as “the home base for Dr. Theodore Millon’s professional activities”; is featured on that site as the author of another instrument designed to assess Millon’s eight basic personality styles; since 1999 has edited three editions of the Essentials of the Millon Inventories Assessment [1‐3]; has authored the Handbook of Personology and Psychopathology [4], which reflects “Millon’s blue print for an integrated science”; and is listed in the Acknowledgements section of the MBMD manual [5] as one “who participated at one or more stages of our research with medical patients”. Finally, the manual for another Millon publication, for which Dr. Strack is a co-author, is owned by NCS Pearson, which sells all of the Millon products, including the MBMD. Thus, while it may be true that Dr. Strack “has no direct commercial interest” in the MBMD per se, it is possible to consider that he may not be a disinterested party in this discussion. …