No abstract

The Impact Message Inventory-Circumplex (IMI-C; Kiesler & Schmidt, 2006) is an interpersonal personality measure purporting to capture the command and relationship messages experienced by the IMI-C respondent in her or his interactions with a target person. Mixed support for the circumplex structure of the American IMI-C was found by Schmidt, Wagner, and Kiesler (1999). In this study, we sought to establish the circumplex structure of the Dutch IMI-C adaptation (Hafkenscheid, 2003) in a group of clinician raters assessing a total of 350 psychiatric patient targets. The Dutch IMI-C exhibited closer fit to circumplex models in this study than in the Schmidt et al. (1999) study of the English language IMI-C. However, using the most stringent and conservative circumplex criteria, the circumplex structure of the Dutch IMI-C could not unequivocally be confirmed. Our findings do not justify the generation of 8 separate octant scores when the IMI-C is used as an interpersonal measurement tool. Clinical use of the IMI-C for interpersonal assessment and diagnosis should probably be limited to the location of patient targets on the 2 main dimensions of Control and Affiliation, sacrificing the specificity of octant level interpersonal assessment.

In this single-blind study the sedative and hypnotic properties of buspirone, a nonbenzodiazepine anxiolytic, were investigated in 8 anxious outpatients. Polysomnographic recordings were gathered during baseline, at the start of active medication, after 3 weeks of treatment and one night after discontinuing treatment. Daytime alertness was measured using the Multiple Sleep Latency Test and performance tests. The effects of buspirone on sleep structure were minimal and of no clinical consequence. Subjectively, the patients reported improved sleep quality. There were no effects on daytime alertness at the beginning, after 3 weeks or at sudden discontinuation of the medication. It is concluded that buspirone does not have a sedative or hypnotic effect in anxiety patients.

The 56-items Impact Message Inventory-Circumplex (IMI-C) has been developed to describe the interpersonal styles of target persons in terms of the 2-dimensional interpersonal circle, divided in 8 subscales (octants). The IMI-C is based on the assumption that a target person's interpersonal styles can validly be measured by assessing the internal (cognitive and emotional) reactions of the IMI-C respondent (e.g., therapists), interacting with the target person (e.g., psychotherapy patients). This replication study tested the circumplexity of a computer-delivered Dutch IMI-C. The computer-delivered Dutch IMI-C approached circumplexity in a large clinical sample (N = 812) of psychotherapy and psychiatric patients, after removing 3 items from the Submissive octant scale. These 3 items clearly disturbed the IMI-C circumplex structure. It is concluded that, even with the inevitable problem of nested data, circumplexity was approached sufficiently to justify the interpretation of the IMI-C at the octant level, provided that the 3 troublesome Submissive items are removed from the calculations of octant scores. Our replication test of the Dutch IMI-C circumplexity might be an impetus for researchers in the United States to invest in the further validation of the original American version.

Om interpersoonlijke aspecten van het disfunctioneren van patie¨nten te verduidelijken wordt vaak gebruik gemaakt van het interpersoonlijke-circumplexmodel. Dit model is vooral bekend als 'de roos van Leary': een cirkelvormige ordening van acht of zestien categoriee¨n van interpersoonlijk gedrag, gelegen rondom twee orthogonale assen. In deze tekst wordt een recent ontwikkeld en gevalideerd instrument voorgesteld: de Nederlandse interpersoonlijke-adjectievenschalen (NIAS). De vragenlijst laat toe om het interpersoonlijke functioneren vanuit meerdere perspectieven in kaart te brengen. Toepassingsmogelijkheden op het vlak van diagnostiek, therapie en supervisie/ intervisie worden toegelicht en handvatten worden aangereikt om het gebruik van 'de roos' te verbreden en te verdiepen.