Object representation, ego development and styles of recovery from psychosis

Abstract

Two recovery styles from psychosis, integrating and sealing over, which were commonly suspected on a clinically intuitive level to reflect different levels of psychological maturity were empirically shown to reflect statistically and clinically significant differences in regard to a patient's internalized object relations, and especially in relation to his/her ability to form unique, articulated object representations. One measure in particular, the Blatt measure of object representation, was able to account for an overwhelming 73% of the variance in the present study's dependent variable--recovery style. The fact that the Blatt measure accounted for so much variation in recovery style suggests that the construct "object representation" contains important information about a person's overall psychological level of development that is especially relevant to the manner in which a person copes with a psychotic experience.;Several control variables, including, sex race, social competence, and verbal abstract ability were shown to not influence a person's recovery style. The lack of relationship between all of the control variables, except diagnosis and thinking disturbance, and recovery style was consistent with the present study's hypothesis, that the recovery styles are primarily influenced by a person's intrapsychic level of psychological development. Two control variables, thinking disturbance, and diagnosis, contributed a unique amount of variance to the prediction of recovery style, but they were not, in and of themselves, clinically significant in regard to the prediction of recovery style.