The psychological mindedness assessment procedure – validation study of a Dutch version

Objective The Psychological Mindedness Assessment Procedure [PMAP; McCallum, M. & Piper, W. E. (1990) ] operationalizes psychological mindedness as a participant's understanding of the problem presented by two videotaped enacted patients. To possibly enhance predictive power for psychotherapy outcome, we added two video scenarios with emotionally high‐impact. This article describes psychometric properties of the Dutch translation of the PMAP and the extended version, the PMAP‐plus. Design A therapy‐analogue study with non‐clinical participants (N=100). Methods In individual sessions, participants watched the four video‐scenarios and responded to the PMAP‐question ‘What seems to be troubling this woman?’. Emotional reactions were measured using the Positive And Negative Affect Schedule [PANAS; Watson, D., Clark, L. E. & Tellegen, A. (1988) ]. Results The PMAP and the PMAP‐plus had good interrater reliability. As expected, PMAP‐levels were lower for the newly added high‐emotional scenarios. Validity was further supported by a negative relation of PMAP‐scores with the Negative Affect subscale. Conclusions The Dutch translation of the PMAP and the added scenarios of the PMAP‐plus are reliable instruments. The predictive power for psychotherapy outcome needs to be investigated in a patient group. The variation in presented clinical problems could also make it a useful instrument to assess psychological mindedness in psychotherapists.