Interpersonal problems and the psychotherapy context: The construct validity of the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems.

Abstract

The interpersonal circumplex was used to categorize patients reporting interpersonal distress into 1 of 4 problem quadrants: Friendly Dominant, Hostile Dominant, Hostile Submissive, and Friendly Submissive. At several points in treatment, therapists assessed their patients' personality disturbances, global functioning, and assets and liabilities for therapy. Patients described their in-session experiences using the Therapy Session Report (D. E. Orlinsky & K. I. Howard, 1975). The 4 problem types each had a coherent and distinctive set of correlates. Patients' interpersonal problems were articulated in therapists' perceptions and evaluations, and in the kinds of interpersonal and intrapsychic themes (wants, hopes, feelings, behaviors, etc.) that characterized patients' retrospective accounts of the therapy sessions. The results add to knowledge about the IIP, interpersonal problems, and the psychotherapy context.Interpersonal problems are the characteristic difficulties that an individual experiences in relating to others and are sources of subjective distress (cf. Homey, 1950;Horowitz, 1994;Leary, 1957), Clearly, interpersonal problems are a major reason that people seek psychotherapy (Horowitz, Rosenberg, & Bartholomew, 1993), and each of the major systems of psychotherapy has, in one way or another, addressed the issue of how best to conceptualize, assess, and classify such problems.The broad purpose of this article is to explore the construct validity of a self-report measure of interpersonal problems, the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems (IIP; Horowitz, Rosenberg, Baer, Ureno, & Villasenor, 1988). As Cronbach and Meehl (1955) pointed out, construct validity efforts serve simultaneously to advance knowledge about particular measures, their referent traits, and-perhaps just as important-the larger, "nomological net" in which those measures and traits are embedded. In this case, the net, or context, is the psychotherapy encounter, as represented in psychodynamic psychotherapy

Interpersonal characteristics of male criminal offenders: Personality, psychopathological, and behavioral correlates.

“…The results are also consistent with results from nonoffender samples, in which high dominance has been identified as an indicator of problematic response to treatment (e.g., Gurtman, 1996; see also Muran et al, 1994). Whether DOM is associated with actual negative treatment outcomes among offenders (i.e., recidivism), as opposed to staff ratings, is an important question that has yet to be addressed in the literature.…”

“…For example, Muran, Segal, Samstag, and Crawford (1994) reported that client selfreports of interpersonal features predict subsequent ratings of treatment alliance in short-term cognitive therapy. Similarly, interpersonal features have been shown to predict therapist ratings of personality characteristics and global functioning in the context of brief psychodymamic therapy (Gurtman, 1996).…”

“…For example, Wiggins and Pincus (2002) reported a relatively nonspecific profile for borderline personality features (see also Sim & Romney, 1990), and Soldz, Budman, Demby, and Merry (1993) found that neither paranoid nor borderline features were exceedingly distinctive in comparison to other personality disorders. Aside from their association with personality pathology, researchers also have examined these interpersonal dimensions in relation to other types of psychopathology (e.g., Kachin, Newman, & Pincus, 2001) as well as in relation to various forms of interpersonal functioning, such as response to intervention (e.g., Gurtman, 1996;Vittengl, Jarrett, & Clark, 2003).…”

Interpersonal Subtypes in Social Phobia: Diagnostic and Treatment Implications

“…Third, we examined subtype differences on posttreatment measures of general symptom severity, level of social anxiety, psychological well-being, level of optimism, and satisfaction with social functioning. Extensive research using the IIP-C has shown that friendly-submissive interpersonal problems are positively related to psychotherapy outcome, whereas hostile-dominant problems are negatively related to outcome (e.g., Gurtman, 1996;Horowitz et al, 1992;Horowitz, Rosenberg, & Bartholomew, 1993;Kasoff & Pincus, 2002;Muran et al, 1994). Therefore, we predicted that socially phobic patients with friendly, exploitable, and submissive interpersonal problems would respond more positively to psychotherapy than socially phobic patients with avoidant, cold, and hostile interpersonal problems.…”

Patient interpersonal factors and the therapeutic alliance in two treatments for bulimia nervosa

“…To address the shortcomings of the "uniformity myth," some researchers have argued for the usefulness of circumplex models of interpersonal behavior (see Gurtman, 1992Gurtman, , 1996Wiggins, 1982). In brief, circumplex models are derived from interpersonal theory (e.g., Carson, 1969;Kiesler, 1983Kiesler, , 1986Kiesler, , 1996Leary; and consist of two orthogonal dimensions: control and affiliation.…”