Two primary configurations of psychopathology and change in thought disorder in long-term intensive inpatient treatment of seriously disturbed young adults.
OBJECTIVE
Change in three types of thought disorder as measured by Rorschach responses (contaminations, confabulations, and fabulized combinations) were assessed during intensive, long-term, psychodynamically oriented inpatient treatment.


METHODS
Rorschach protocols for 90 seriously disturbed, treatment-resistant patients, 42 of whom were primarily preoccupied with primitive issues of interpersonal relatedness and used avoidant defenses (anaclitic patients) and 48 primarily preoccupied with primitive issues of self-definition and self-worth and used counteractive defenses (introjective patients), were evaluated at the beginning of treatment and, on average, 15 months into treatment.


RESULTS
Change in anaclitic patients occurred primarily in more pathological forms of thought disorder (contaminations and confabulations) that express boundary disturbances; change in introjective patients occurred primarily in the less disturbed thought disorder (fabulized combinations) that expresses tendencies toward referential thinking.


CONCLUSIONS
Seriously disturbed anaclitic and introjective patients expressed therapeutic progress in different but theoretically consistent ways.
Blatt
Sidney J
SJ
Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, Suite 901, 300 George St., New Haven, CT 06511, USA. sidney.blatt@yale.edu
Besser
Avi
A
Ford
Richard Q
RQ
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy; D003674:Defense Mechanisms; D005260:Female; D006760:Hospitalization; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008134:Long-Term Care; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D008960:Models, Psychological; D010554:Personality Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy; D011575:Psychoanalytic Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D011936:Reality Testing; D012392:Rorschach Test; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000628:therapy; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D012649:Self Concept; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D016896:Treatment Outcome