Object relations and social cognition in borderlines, major depressives, and normals: A Thematic Apperception Test analysis.

This study compared reliably diagnosed borderline personality patients (n?=?35) with major depressives (n?=?25) and normals (n?=?30) on 4 dimensions of object relations and social cognition coded from Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) responses: Complexity of Representations of People, Affect–Tone of Relationship Paradigms (malevolent to benevolent), Capacity for Emotional Investment in Relationships, and Understanding of Social Causality. As predicted, borderlines scored significantly lower on all 4 scales than did normals and lower on Affect–Tone and Capacity for Emotional Investment than did nonborderline major depressives. Borderlines also produced more pathological responses than did both groups on every scale, indicating more poorly differentiated representation, grossly illogical attributions, malevolent expectations, and need-gratifying relationship paradigms. The results suggest the importance of distinguishing several interdependent but distinct cognitive–affective dimensions of object relations and the potential utility of assessing object relations and social cognition from TAT responses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)