title: Percept-genetic signs of repression in histrionic personality disorder.
abstract: Several types of perceptual distortions of two anxiety-arousing visual stimuli are coded as repression in the Defense Mechanism Test, a tachistoscopic, percept-genetic technique. Given the well-established correspondence between hysteria and repression, the study included a clinical validation of these variants of repression against the diagnosis of histrionic personality disorder. 41 subjects with evidence of this disorder on the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-II were compared with 41 nonhistrionic controls. Significantly more histrionics were coded for the type of repression in which the threatening figure is transformed into a harmless object (code 1:42), while animal- and statue-repressions, when combined (codes 1:1 and 1:2), were significantly more characteristic of the nonhistrionic group. As an unpredicted finding, significantly more histrionic subjects employed defensive strategies, currently coded as reaction formations (code 4:). Histrionic subjects without concomitant compulsive features were coded more frequently for introaggression (code 6:) compared both with nonhistrionic controls and with histrionic-compulsive subjects. The findings are discussed within the context of the available percept-genetic literature. It is suggested that the Defense Mechanism Test may be further employed to objectify and investigate the defense mechanisms of the DSM-III-R disorders.
authors.affiliation: Tor Vergata University, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: I A
authors.initials: IA
authors.lastname: Rubino
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Saya
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Pezzarossa
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003674:Defense Mechanisms; D005260:Female; D006677:Histrionic Personality Disorder / Q000235:genetics* / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010469:Perceptual Distortion; D010552:Personality Assessment; D012094:Repression, Psychology