Influence of Manipulative Attitudes on Mentalization in Patients with Schizotypal Disorders

Abstract

The paper regards mentalization in the logic of systems and social mediation of cultural-historical approach. We applied Westen’s model to the analysis of TAT narratives and interpreted internal system relations between affective (“emotional investment in relationships”, “affective tone of relationships”, empathy) and cognitive (“сomplexity of representations”, “understanding of social causality”) components of mentalization; we also explored intersystem relations with manipulative attitudes in interpersonal communication (Machiavellianism). The detected low mentalization abilities of patients with schizotypal disorders (р<0,05) in their affective part (insensibility to the inner world of the Other) turned out to be dependent on the intensity of manipulative attitudes (р<0,001), which stresses the importance of interpersonal cultural context for social cognition. Interpretation of the acquired results in the logic of system structure of mentalization allows us to emphasize the resourcefulness of internal system and intersystem relations: “tolerance to uncertainty” corresponds with the high level of cognitive “сomplexity of representations”, while high “сomplexity of representations”, joined by “understanding of social causality”, promotes adequate behavior-based understating of the mind.