title: A Boston Yankee: Paul M. Lerner and the heart of assessment.
abstract: In this article, I review the contributions of Paul M. Lerner to the theory and practice of personality assessment. I contrast Lerner's clinical approach with a narrow empirical approach along several dimensions. I explicate Lerner's experiential-psychoanalytic method. I draw attention to the patient's subjective experience as the nexus for interpretation and to the centrality of the patient-examiner relationship in the conduct of assessment.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, USA. blsmith@socrates.berkeley.edu
authors.forename: Bruce L
authors.initials: BL
authors.lastname: Smith
mesh_terms: D003142:Communication; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010552:Personality Assessment / Q000266:history*; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations; D011572:Psychoanalysis / Q000266:history / Q000379:methods