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The Terrorist Radicalization Assessment Protocol (TRAP-18) is a structured professional judgment instrument for threat assessment of the individual terrorist. It is a rationally derived theoretical model comprising eight proximal warning behaviors and 10 distal characteristics. Empirical research on the TRAP-18 is reviewed, including both nomothetic and idiographic studies of individual terrorists in both the United States and Europe. Mean interrater reliability is 0.895 (Cohen's kappa), ranging from 0.69 to 1.0. Evidence of criterion validity has been demonstrated, including usefulness of the instrument across various extremist ideologies (jihadism, ethnic nationalism, and single-issue), and its ability to discriminate between thwarted and successful attackers. The instrument appears to advance the domain recommendations of Monahan (2012, 2016) for the risk assessment of the individual terrorist. The TRAP-18 is further discussed as a threat assessment instrument for mental health clinicians. The limitations of the current research provide direction for further studies to assess its reliability and construct, discriminant, and predictive validity.

The violent true believer is an individual committed to an ideology or belief system which advances homicide and suicide as a legitimate means to further a particular goal. The author explores useful sources of evidence for an indirect personality assessment of such individuals. He illustrates both idiographic and nomothetic approaches to indirect personality assessment through comparative analyses of Timothy McVeigh, an American who bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, and Mohamed Atta, an Egyptian who led the airplane attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001. The risks of indirect personality assessment and ethical concerns are identified.

A sample of incarcerated sexual homicide perpetrators (n = 18) were compared to a sample of non-sexually offending but violent male psychopaths (n = 23) on select Rorschach variables using the Comprehensive System (Exner, 1991). Results suggest that sexual homicide perpetrators are similar to psychopaths in their attachment abnormality, characterological anger, pathological narcissism, moderate and pervasive formal thought disorder, and borderline reality testing. They are distinguished, however, by a more frequent affectional hunger, a tendency to engage in more dysphoric rumination, and abnormal elevations of nonvolitional ideation (obsessional thoughts) due to unmet instinctual need states. They also show a greater interest in others as whole, real, and meaningful objects. Five psychodynamic factors, supported by the empirical findings, are proposed to partially explain the intrapsychic mechanisms involved in an act of sexual homicide.

The case of a 21-year-old White man who committed a robbery and homicide is presented. His Rorschach is analyzed and interpreted using both psychostructural (Exner, 1986a) and psychodynamic (Cooper, Perry, & Arnow, 1988; Gacono & Meloy, 1992; Kwawer, 1980) methodologies. Findings are used to understand the presence and interaction of both psychopathic character and borderline personality organization in this explosive and sadistic young man.

Rorschach data were used to psychometrically "map" the internal psychological operations of three Cluster B personality disorders, listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd ed., rev. [DSM-III-R]; American Psychiatric Association, 1987), all of which may be organized at a borderline level. Psychopathic antisocial subjects (P-APDs) and narcissistic subjects (NPDs) were highly narcissistic. NPD subjects, however, produced more indices of anxiety and attachment capacity and fewer scores related to borderline object relations and damaged identity. P-APDs and borderline subjects (BPDs) produced similar mean numbers of borderline object relations; however, the BPDs were more anxious, produced more unsublimated aggressive and libidinal drive material, and evidenced greater potential for attachment. BPDs were also less narcissistic than both P-APDs and NPDs. Nonpsychopathic antisocial subjects (NP-APDs) were less borderline than P-APDs and BPDs, less narcissistic in terms of a stable grandiose self-structure than NPD and P-APDs, produced less evidence of attachment capacity than NPDs and BPDs but more than P-APDs, and were similar to BPDs in their proneness to anxiety. The outpatient NPDs and BPDs produced more idealization responses than the incarcerated antisocial personality disorder (APD) groups. We conclude that the behavioral descriptions offered for these three Cluster B personality disorders, when used in conjunction with information such as level of personality organization (Kernberg, 1984), level of psychopathy (Hare, 1980, 1985), and outpatient versus inpatient research settings, may have greater intrapsychic specificity than previously thought.

The case of a 33-year-old White male with a history of sexual assault is presented. His Rorschach is analyzed and interpreted using both psychostructural (Exner, 1986) and psychodynamic (Cooper & Arnow, 1986; Kwawer, 1980; Meloy & Gacono, in press-b) methodologies. Findings are used to understand the presence and interaction of both psychopathic character and psychotic personality organization in this mentally ill, sadistic, and sexually predatory young man.

The published Rorschach (Kaiser, 1970) of Sirhan Sirhan, the man who assassinated presidential aspirant Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, was studied. Psychostructural and psychodynamic analyses were conducted using reliable and valid methodology that was unavailable at the time of examination. In contrast to the defense experts at trial who diagnosed paranoid schizophrenia, the data suggest a depressed and suicidal individual organized at a borderline level of personality. Character pathology is hysterical, paranoid, and dependent. When the Rorschach findings are compared to the development history of Sirhan and the behavior around the time of the assassination, the data are somewhat consistent with the theme of psychic trauma, are very consistent with the theme of recurrent loss and pathological mourning, and validate a characterological distrust and hatred of, yet hysterical dependence on, the object world. Rorschach indices of predatory violence (Meloy, 1988a) in relation to the planned and purposeful assassination are also discussed.

We investigated the constructs of attachment and anxiety in inpatient conduct-disordered and dysthymic adolescents. Texture, diffuse shading, and pure human content (Exner, 1986) Rorschach indices were compared between 48 subjects who met the criteria for conduct disorder and 30 subjects who met the criteria for dysthymia, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd ed., rev. [DSM-III-R]; American Psychiatric Association, 1987). We also compared mild, moderate, and severe conduct-disorder groups on the three selected Rorschach variables and investigated certain family characteristics for the two groups. We found a lower frequency of texture and pure human content responses in conduct-disordered subjects and a greater frequency of diffuse shading responses in the dysthymic subjects. The conduct-disordered subjects also came from homes in which the mother figure was significantly less present. Our psychometric findings of lessened attachment and diminished anxiety in the conduct-disordered adolescents are similar to adult psychopaths. We urge that an attachment or socialization disturbance criterion be reintroduced into the forthcoming DSM-IV conduct-disorder diagnosis.

We analyzed the contemporary empirical and theoretical literature concerning the two predominant approaches for scoring formal thought disorder on the Rorschach, the Comprehensive System special scores, and the methodology of Rapaport, Gill, and Schafer (1946/1968). The psychoanalytic research related to selected special scores is reviewed, and some linkages to psychoanalytic developmental theory and psychopathology are made. Recommendations are presented to bridge the gap between these two important avenues of Rorschach research, with an emphasis on empirical rigor and intrapsychic contextual meaning.

We investigated Rorschach responses associated with narcissism and hysteria in a group of antisocial personality disordered offenders. The Rorschach protocols of 42 subjects who met the criteria from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd ed., rev. [DSM-III-R]; American Psychiatric Association, 1987) for antisocial personality disorder were analyzed using Exner's (1986) criteria for pairs, reflections, and personal responses, and Gacono's (1988) criteria for the impressionistic response. Severe, or primary psychopaths (n = 21), scoring greater than or equal to 30 on the Hare (1980) Psychopathy Checklist (PCL), were compared to moderate, or secondary pscyhopaths (n = 21), scoring less than 30 on the PCL. The mean number of pair and impressionistic responses did not significantly differ for the two antisocial groups. The highly psychopathic group, however, did exhibit a significantly greater mean number of reflection and personal responses. We discuss pair and reflection responses and their relationship to narcissism in psychopathic disturbance. We recommend interpreting the personal response within the context of the psychopathic character and view personal responses as expressions of narcissism and omnipotence in highly psychopathic subjects. We also hypothesize that the impressionistic responses are indicative of primitive dissociative processes and hysteria in psychopathic subjects, and that their presence provides construct validity for the work of Guze (1976) and others who suggested an underlying histrionic dimension to psychopathy.

We studied the thought and affective disturbance of Megargee and Bohn's (1979) most psychopathological Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) subtypes, the "How" and "Charlie" profiles. 75 subjects, consisting of three groups of How and Charlie subtypes in inpatient and outpatient forensic settings and two control groups, are tested using the Whitaker Index of Schizophrenic Thinking (WIST) and Profile of Mood States (POMS). Results indicate both How and Charlie subtypes have mild formal thought disorder, with the former showing greater variance of thought disorder. Charlie subtypes, however, are more angry, less depressed, more vigorous, and more constricted and defensive than the How subtypes. We conclude that the How subtype needs further actuarial refinement to be diagnostically useful.