The Humanistic Psychologist, Vol 53(3), Sep 2025, 341-364; doi:10.1037/hum0000366
The five-factor personality assessment system (FFPAS) is a semistructured interview based on the tenets of humanistic psychological assessment and the cognitive sciences for individualizing assessment using the five-factor model (FFM). The FFPAS affords novel clinical uses of personality instruments designed to measure the FFM, like the NEO, by locating sources of psychological distress in poorly suited matches between individuals’ trait measures and their problematic life situations. The FFPAS thus affords personalized trait-based case conceptualizations and targeted interventions in person–situation breakdowns through a humanistic approach. This article begins with a review of current uses and limitations of the FFM in the field of assessment, highlighting the need for a method of individualizing assessment findings using the FFM. It then outlines the theoretical and methodological groundwork of the FFPAS with a discussion of its evolutionary rationale, demonstrating how the FFM can be used for assessing trait–situation mismatches in clients’ lived experiences of problematic situations in an individualized way. Finally, it reviews a pilot study that garnered preliminary evidence in support of the coding criteria employed in the FFPAS and concludes with a discussion of the limitations of this research, as well as its significance for the practice of humanistic assessment and psychopathology. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)