Great article, directly related to my cause area too (nuclear forensics and nonproliferation).
I was wondering, have you engaged with the contemporary psychodynamic literature on malevolent traits at all? You mention NPD but only in a DSM context, whereas something like the psychodynamic diagnostic manual works on a different category set. I know they consider NPD (in its less extremely malignant and non-forensic forms) to be both quite common and inherently treatable.
I’d also mention the Shedler-Western Assessment Procedure (SWAP) with its associated DIRE risk score. It looks at how to get around the self-report problem without introducing too much other bias (I.e. tendency to rate someone as high on everything) by using cards with descriptions that you order in a deck. The idea is great, but the depth (it’s intended primarily for clinical use) is a bit intimidating. Somebody looking at how to simplify the whole SWAP to something a bit less in-depth and more manageable might come up with a useful tool in this area.
I haven’t engaged much with the psychodynamic literature or mostly only indirectly (as some therapy modalities like CFT or ST are quite eclectic and thus reference various psychodynamic concepts) but perhaps @Clare_Diane has. Is there any specific construct, paper/book or test that you have in mind here?
I’m not familiar with the SWAP but it looks very interesting (though Clare may know it), thanks for mentioning it! As you most likely know, there even exists a National Security Edition developed in collaboration with the US government.
Thanks for your comments, Kestrel, and your response, David (and apologies for not replying at the time). Agree that psychodynamic theory may have some relevance to the concepts we’re talking about, and agree that the SWAP looks interesting!
Describing the SWAP wouldn’t quite have fit with the goals of this piece, since it wasn’t used in the large studies we cited here, and since it focuses on making clinical diagnoses (whereas our focus is on specific traits of concern to the long-term future—we give more details about this distinction in our appendices). But it definitely seems like the SWAP would have relevance in some contexts, and like David mentioned, there’s already a National Security Edition. Your idea to develop more scalable versions of such a tool sounds fascinating, Kestrel. Thank you so much again for your engagement with our piece and for the helpful ideas here!
Great article, directly related to my cause area too (nuclear forensics and nonproliferation).
I was wondering, have you engaged with the contemporary psychodynamic literature on malevolent traits at all? You mention NPD but only in a DSM context, whereas something like the psychodynamic diagnostic manual works on a different category set. I know they consider NPD (in its less extremely malignant and non-forensic forms) to be both quite common and inherently treatable.
I’d also mention the Shedler-Western Assessment Procedure (SWAP) with its associated DIRE risk score. It looks at how to get around the self-report problem without introducing too much other bias (I.e. tendency to rate someone as high on everything) by using cards with descriptions that you order in a deck. The idea is great, but the depth (it’s intended primarily for clinical use) is a bit intimidating. Somebody looking at how to simplify the whole SWAP to something a bit less in-depth and more manageable might come up with a useful tool in this area.
Thanks!
I haven’t engaged much with the psychodynamic literature or mostly only indirectly (as some therapy modalities like CFT or ST are quite eclectic and thus reference various psychodynamic concepts) but perhaps @Clare_Diane has. Is there any specific construct, paper/book or test that you have in mind here?
I’m not familiar with the SWAP but it looks very interesting (though Clare may know it), thanks for mentioning it! As you most likely know, there even exists a National Security Edition developed in collaboration with the US government.
Thanks for your comments, Kestrel, and your response, David (and apologies for not replying at the time). Agree that psychodynamic theory may have some relevance to the concepts we’re talking about, and agree that the SWAP looks interesting!
Describing the SWAP wouldn’t quite have fit with the goals of this piece, since it wasn’t used in the large studies we cited here, and since it focuses on making clinical diagnoses (whereas our focus is on specific traits of concern to the long-term future—we give more details about this distinction in our appendices). But it definitely seems like the SWAP would have relevance in some contexts, and like David mentioned, there’s already a National Security Edition. Your idea to develop more scalable versions of such a tool sounds fascinating, Kestrel. Thank you so much again for your engagement with our piece and for the helpful ideas here!