Perceptual differerentiation and defense mechanisms in alcoholics

Abstract

PROBLEM Alcoholics, as a clinical population, have been found in previous research to be markedly field-dependent when compared with nonalcoholic normal and hospitalized psychiatric control groups (12, I s ) . Further evidence tends to substantiate the presence of cognitive and personality correlates of limited perceptual diff erentiation in alcoholics. Karp, Poster, and Goodman'll) found alcoholic women to have a less sophisticated body concept, as assessed by figure-drawing tests, than nonalcoholic controls. Fitzhugh, Fitzhugh, and Reitan (r, 4, and Jones and Parsons@) have found alcoholics to be less cognitively complex as indicated by poorer performances on abstracting tasks than nonalcoholics. Alcoholics also have been shown to employ more primitive, nondiff erentiated defense mechanisms, such as repression, denial, and turning hostility inward, than did normal controls ( I ) .A number of more recent investigations have questioned the homogeneity of the alcoholic population along the dimension of perceptual differentiation. Goldstein and Chotlos (7 ) found considerable variability as well as bimodal distributions in measures of perceptual field-dependence within an alcoholic sample. Fuller, Lunney, and Naylor (5) identified three distinct subtypes of alcoholics based upon their position along a continuum from intact to deteriorated perception similar to that of field dependence-independence. Reilly and Sugerman (I5) found alcoholics to vary widely in their level of cognitive complexity in terms of a sentence completion task. Results of their investigation indicated that alcoholics who were functioning at lower levels of cognitive complexity were more field-dependent and had less differentiated body concepts than those who were functioning a t higher levels of cognitive complexity. Although these findings are in disagreement with the initial conceptualization of a homogeneous, markedly field-dependent alcoholic population (17), they tend to indicate that cognitive and personality traits vary predictably as a function of the level of perceptual differentiation within the population.It was assumed that defense mechanisms, like other personality traits, should vary within an alcoholic population in a manner consistent with predictions from differentiation theory. Previous research that employed the Defense Mechanisms Inventory (2, 6 , 8 ) found that college students and psychiatric patients who scored higher on scales of the more highly developed defenses, such as turning against an object or projection, were significantly more field-independent than Ss who utilized the defenses of reversal and turning hostility inward. It was hypothesized that similar relationships between perceptual style and defenses would characterize field-independent and field-dependent alcoholic Ss. METHODSubjects. The Ss were 75 male veteran alcoholic inpatients with a mean age of 47.7 (SD = 8.7) and a mean educational level of 11.9 years (SD = 2.9). All the Ss, who had volunteered to participate in the research, were tested routinely i...

The Development of Defense Mechanisms

“…This was found to be true within the narrower range of early adulthood (GIeser & Ihilevich, 1969) as well as over the broader range, through later adulthood (Donovan, Hague, & O'Leary, 1975;Rohsenow et aI., 1978;Wilson, 1982). Only one study reports on the relationship between defense choice and education, unconfounded by age (Rohsenow et aI., 1978): PRN correlated positively with years of education, REV and T AS correlated negatively, and both TAO and PRO were unrelated.…”

Psychological differentiation: Current status.

“…Ln one approach, clinical assessments of defenses were made. The clinical techniques used have included (he Rorschach (e.g., Hertini, 1962;Levine & Spivak, 1964;Morrison & ('enters, 1069;Schimek, 1968); an interview (Witkin et al, 1954(Witkin et al, , 1972 or therapy interactions (Safer, 1975); a battery of psychological tests and behavioral observations (Gardner & Moriarty, 1968); Blacky Pictures and the Sentence Completion Test (Lutzky & Schmeidler, 1963;Silverstone, 1966); and the Defense Mechanism Inventory, developed by Gleser and Ihilevich (1969) (e.g., Bogo, Winget, & Gleser, 1970;Donovan, Hague, & O'Leary, 1975;Erickson, Smyth, Donovan, & O'Leary, 1976;Williamson, 1977). In another kind of study, repressers and isolators were identified through performance on a metacontrast situation (Almgren, 1971 ;Nilsson & Almgren, 1970).…”

Field dependence and interpersonal behavior.

“…The subject is asked to choose the alternative that best represents how he would react to that situation. Studies with the Defense Mechanism Inventory have consistently shown that field-independent people are prone to use "turning against ob-ject" as a characteristic defense, and fielddependent subjects "turning against self" (Bogo, Winget, & Gleser, 1970;Donovan, Hague, & O'Leary, 1975;Gleser & Ihilevich, 1969;Ihilevich, 1968;Ihilevich & Gleser, 1971).…”