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Levels of personality organization and psychopathology among drug abusers in Sweden
Author(s) -
Sandell Rolf,
Bertling Ulla
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
journal of clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.124
H-Index - 119
eISSN - 1097-4679
pISSN - 0021-9762
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1097-4679(199611)52:6<711::aid-jclp14>3.0.co;2-p
Subject(s) - neuroticism , psychology , psychopathology , drug abuser , personality , clinical psychology , psychiatry , sample (material) , substance abuse , social psychology , chemistry , chromatography
In a case‐finding sample of 1,824 drug abusers in the greater Stockholm area, personality organization (PO), according to Kernberg's theory, was assessed by using a standardized questionnaire, with the clients' contact persons as informants. Twenty percent of the sample were diagnosed as psychotic PO (PPO), 40% had a clear borderline PO (BPO), and 40% a high BPO or a neurotic PO (NPO). This distribution agreed closely with that found in a comparison sample of social service clients. However, in the NPO and BPO groups, the mean scores were higher for the social service clients than for the abusers. A clustering into nine sub‐clusters revealed interesting differences within each PO. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.