Multivariate modelling and personality organization: A comparative study of the Defense Mechanism Test and linguistic expressions

• Published in: Scandinavian journal of psychology 1996-03, Vol.37 (1), p.74-83
• Main Authors: SUNDBOM, ELISABET, JEANNEAU, MADELEINE
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Borderline Personality Disorder - diagnosis; Borderline Personality Disorder - psychology; content analysis; Defence Mechanisms Inventory; Defense Mechanism Test; Defense Mechanisms; Humans; Kernberg's Structural Interview; Neurotic Disorders - diagnosis; Neurotic Disorders - psychology; Patients; Pattern analysis; Perceptual Defense; Personality; Personality Assessment - statistics & numerical data; Personality Disorders - diagnosis; Personality Disorders - psychology; principal component analysis; projective methods; Projective Techniques - statistics & numerical data; Psychiatric disorders; Psychometrics; Psychotic Disorders - diagnosis; Psychotic Disorders - psychology; Relationship; Reproducibility of Results; Verbal Behavior; Words
• ISSN: 0036-5564; 1467-9450
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9450.1996.tb00640.x

The main aim of the study is to establish an empirical connection between perceptual defences as measured by the Defense Mechanism Test (DMT)–a projective percept‐genetic method–and manifest linguistic expressions based on word pattern analyses. The subjects were 25 psychiatric patients with the diagnoses neurotic personality organization (NPO), borderline personality organization (BPO) and psychotic personality organization (PPO) in accordance with Kernberg's theory. A set of 130 DMT variables and 40 linguistic variables were analyzed by means of partial least squares (PLS) discriminant analysis separately and then pooled together. The overall hypothesis was that it would be possible to define the personality organization of the patients in terms of an amalgam of perceptual defences and word patterns, and that these two kinds of data would confirm each other. The result of the combined PLS analysis revealed a very good separation between the diagnostic groups as measured by the pooled variable sets. Among other things, it was shown that NPO patients are principally characterized by linguistic variables, whereas BPO and PPO patients are better defined by perceptual defences as measured by the DMT method.