Study on the defense styles in patients with hysteria / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To explore psychological defense mechanism and its relationship with personality in patients with hysteria(HyS). Method Both HyS patients (n=30) and normal control(NC, n=66) comple-ted Defense Style Questionnaire (DSQ) and Eysenck Personality Questionnaire(EPQ) . Results The scores of projection, isolation, somatization and the factor scores of immature defenses were significantly higher in HyS pa-tients(3.64±1.45, 5.63±2.29,5.33±2.36 and 4.74±1.27, respectively) than those in NC [(2.61±1.09,4.33±2.02, 3.86±1.60 and 3.98±0.91, respectively) (all P<0.01)]. The scores of undoing, idealization, pseudo-altruism and the factor scores of neurotic defenses were also significantly higher in HyS patients compared with NC(P<0.01). The scores of suppression, humor and the factor scores of mature defenses and the lie were found lower significantly in HyS patients compared with NC (P<0.05). The scores of the neuroticism, psychoticism and lie subscale of EPQ in HyS patients were significantly higher than that of NC(P<0.01). The scores of extro-vert subscale were not found difference significantly between HyS patients and NC. The results of correlation analy-sis showed that the scores of the psychoticism subscale of EPQ in HyS patients correlated negatively with the factor scores of mature mechanism and the scores of suppression. Conclusion The HyS patients were more likely than the normal control to endorse the immature mechanism and neurotic defense and less likely to endorse the mature mechanism, which related with unhealthy personality, especially the psychoticism.