The MCMI provides a good assessment of DSM-III disorders: the MCMI-II will prove even better.

Although the arguments that Widiger, Williams, Spitzer and Frances muster in their appraisal of MCMI-DSM-III relationships appear compelling, the study employed to furnish empirical support for their thesis may be seriously flawed and the item content approach they propose as a validation model is judged logically and psychometrically deficient. A rejoinder with supportive data are presented to demonstrate both the substantive parallels and the clinical concordance that exist between MCMI and DSM-III criteria. On the basis of theory development and ongoing research, a new MCMI-II assessment instrument will be forthcoming. A brief summary of this updated inventory's rationale and empirical grounding is provided.