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Categorical and dimensional approaches in the evaluation of the relationship between attachment and personality disorders: an empirical study

Categorical and dimensional approaches in the evaluation of the relationship between attachment... Although several studies have highlighted the relationship between attachment states of mind and personality disorders, their findings have not been consistent, possibly due to the application of the traditional taxonomic classification model of attachment. A more recently developed dimensional classification of attachment representations, including more specific aspects of trauma-related representations, may have advantages. In this study, we compare specific associations and predictive power of the categorical attachment and dimensional models applied to 230 Adult Attachment Interview transcripts obtained from personality disordered and nonpsychiatric subjects. We also investigate the role that current levels of psychiatric distress may have in the prediction of PD. The results showed that both models predict the presence of PD, with the dimensional approach doing better in discriminating overall diagnosis of PD. However, both models are less helpful in discriminating specific PD diagnostic subtypes. Current psychiatric distress was found to be the most consistent predictor of PD capturing a large share of the variance and obscuring the role played by attachment variables. The results suggest that attachment parameters correlate with the presence of PD alone and have no specific associations with particular PD subtypes when current psychiatric distress is taken into account. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Attachment & Human Development Taylor & Francis

Categorical and dimensional approaches in the evaluation of the relationship between attachment and personality disorders: an empirical study

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Categorical and dimensional approaches in the evaluation of the relationship between attachment and personality disorders: an empirical study

Abstract

Although several studies have highlighted the relationship between attachment states of mind and personality disorders, their findings have not been consistent, possibly due to the application of the traditional taxonomic classification model of attachment. A more recently developed dimensional classification of attachment representations, including more specific aspects of trauma-related representations, may have advantages. In this study, we compare specific associations and predictive...
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Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Copyright
© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
ISSN
1469-2988
eISSN
1461-6734
DOI
10.1080/14616734.2016.1261915
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Although several studies have highlighted the relationship between attachment states of mind and personality disorders, their findings have not been consistent, possibly due to the application of the traditional taxonomic classification model of attachment. A more recently developed dimensional classification of attachment representations, including more specific aspects of trauma-related representations, may have advantages. In this study, we compare specific associations and predictive power of the categorical attachment and dimensional models applied to 230 Adult Attachment Interview transcripts obtained from personality disordered and nonpsychiatric subjects. We also investigate the role that current levels of psychiatric distress may have in the prediction of PD. The results showed that both models predict the presence of PD, with the dimensional approach doing better in discriminating overall diagnosis of PD. However, both models are less helpful in discriminating specific PD diagnostic subtypes. Current psychiatric distress was found to be the most consistent predictor of PD capturing a large share of the variance and obscuring the role played by attachment variables. The results suggest that attachment parameters correlate with the presence of PD alone and have no specific associations with particular PD subtypes when current psychiatric distress is taken into account.

Journal

Attachment & Human Development – Taylor & Francis

Published: Mar 4, 2017

Keywords: Categorical model of attachment; dimensional model of attachment; personality disorder; psychiatric distress; predictive analyses

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