Gender-bound definitions of mental health

Fifteen male and 15 female American therapists-in-training (clinical and counseling psychology graduate students) were asked to take the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) under each of two instructional sets. In one set, they were instructed to respond to the items as a healthy male would respond, and in the other, as a healthy female would respond. The MMPI profiles obtained from male and female subjects were not significantly different, indicating that these male and female therapists-in-training did not differ in their perceptions of healthy men and women. When the data for male and female subjects were combined, however, healthy women were perceived differently than healthy men on several scales, although the MMPI profiles obtained under both instructional sets were well within normal limits.