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.