Relatedness and Self‐Definition in Normal and Disrupted Personality Development

Personality and Psychopathology

“…Congruent with theoretical assumptions (e.g., , these studies have generally found that individuals with a dependent, histrionic or borderline personality disorder have significantly greater concern with issues of interpersonal relatedness than with issues of self-definition, while individuals with a paranoid, schizoid, schizotypic, antisocial, narcissistic, avoidant, obsessive-compulsive or self-defeating personality disorder usually have significantly greater preoccupation with issues of self-definition than with issues of interpersonal relatedness. These findings are supported further by attachment research showing that personality disorders can be similarly organized in two-dimensional space defined by attachment anxiety reflecting anaclitic concerns, and by attachment avoidance reflecting introjective issues (Blatt and Luyten 2010b;. As noted earlier (footnote # 1), several studies have provided evidence for a distinction between an anaclitic versus an introjective type of borderline personality disorder (Blatt and Auerbach 1988;Levy et al 2007;Morse et al 2002;Ouimette et al 1994;Westen et al 1992;Wixom et al 1993).…”

“…4 Although this broadened Eriksonian model is still too sketchy to capture fully the details of the infinitely complex processes of human psychological development (Blatt and Luyten, in press, a), it does articulate the reciprocal synergistic development of two dimensions throughout life, from infancy through the early developmental years until adolescence at which time the developmental task is to integrate these two developmental dimensions of relatedness and self-definition (or attachment-separation or communion-agency) into the comprehensive structure Erikson called "self-identity" Blass 1990, 1996) or a self-in-relation (Blatt 2006. Hence, adolescence is a crucial time for a synthesis that can result in the formation of a consolidated identity or the emergence of many forms of psychopathology, particularly personality disorders that are characterized by failures to integrate these two fundamental developmental processes (Blatt and Luyten, 2010b).…”

The contributions of Sidney J. Blatt: a personal and intellectual biography

“…Later developments in cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, and interpersonal neurobiology eventually made some of the specifics of Blatt's (1991) initial formulation of his cognitive morphology, with its essentially Piagetian architecture, obsolete. However, insofar as Blatt, as a scientist, always regarded his theories as subject to revision and was willing to modify them in response to new evidence, he worked with younger colleagues to modify his ideas in response to newer cognitive and developmental research pertaining to attachment, caregiver-infant interaction, intersubjectivity, and theory of mind (see, e.g., Auerbach & Blatt, 2001;Auerbach & Diamond, in press;Beebe & Lachmann, 2002;Blatt et al, 1997;Blatt & Levy, 2003;Blatt & Luyten, 2011;Diamond & Blatt, 1994, 1999a, 1999bLuyten & Blatt, 2013). What remained, regardless of these theoretical modifications, was the basic insight that representational level with regard to object relations was crucial to an understanding of an individual's overall psychological functioning.…”

“…A wide-ranging intellect, he made contributions not only in psychology but also in art history, with a particular focus on the role of spatial representation in art (Blatt & Blatt, 1984). He is perhaps best known for his two-configurations model, according to which personality forms along two developmental lines, relatedness and self-definition (e.g., Blatt, 1974Blatt, , 1995bBlatt, , 2008Blatt & Blass, 1990;Blatt & Levy, 2003;Blatt & Luyten, 2011;Blatt & Shichman, 1983;Luyten & Blatt, 2013). In formulating this model, as in all of his contributions, he remained committed to the proposition that it is not only possible but also essential to investigate psychoanalytically derived hypotheses through rigorous empirical science.…”

“…As his earliest major theoretical statement (Blatt, 1974) indicates, Blatt started his career highly influenced by psychoanalytic ego psychology (e.g., Freud, 1965;Jacobson, 1964;Mahler, 1968;Rapaport, 1951) and cognitive developmental psychology (e.g., Piaget, 1954Piaget, , 1962Werner, 1957), and he ended it, as his later statements (e.g., Auerbach & Blatt, 2001;Blatt, 1995bBlatt, , 2008Blatt & Levy, 2003;Blatt & Luyten, 2011;Diamond & Blatt, 1994;Luyten & Blatt, 2013) demonstrate, as a relational thinker influenced by research on attachment theory, (e.g., N o n -c o m m e r c i a l u s e o n l y Bowlby, 1988;Main, 1991;Main, Kaplan, & Cassidy, 1985) and mother-infant dyadic interaction (e.g., Beebe & Lachmann, 2002), as well as by concepts from relational psychoanalysis, intersubjectivity theory, and mentalization theory (e.g., Aron, 1996;Benjamin, 1995;Fonagy, Gergely, Jurist, & Target, 2002;Mitchell, 1988). Blatt was also a master clinician.…”