Challenges in assessing personality of individuals with Gender Dysphoria with the SWAP-200

Personality assessment can be useful to better understand the complexity of transgender and transsexual people. In particular, the Shedler Westen Assessment Procedure-200 (SWAP-200) is a measure that provides an accurate dimensional evaluation of personality. When assessing gender non-conforming people, however, clinicians can encounter some difficulties in giving appropriate ratings to all the items. A brief guide to the use of SWAP-200 with transgender patients is provided, taking into account three areas of psychological functioning: identity, relationships and sexuality. The authors review, one by one, the SWAP-200 items related to these areas, and, relying on their clinical experience and on scientific literature on Gender Dysphoria, they propose recommendations for making personality diagnoses meaningful. This paper facilitates a better clinical understanding of transgender people, and help clinicians to be more knowledgeable in the assessment of this heterogeneous population.