Defense style in personality disorders. An empirical study.

Do patients with DSM-III-R axis II diagnoses use defenses thought to be specific to personality disorders, such as omnipotence, devaluation, splitting, and projective identification? Thirty-one psychiatric outpatients with personality disorders, 42 neurotic outpatients, and 353 community controls completed the 88-item Defense Style Questionnaire. Factor analysis yielded four factors (defense styles). One of them consisted of omnipotence, devaluation, splitting, denial, isolation, and projective identification, defenses considered as typically "borderline" (Cronbach's alpha = .72). The personality disorder group scored significantly higher on the borderline defense style than did the other two groups. The other defense styles (mature, immature, and neurotic) did not differentiate between the patient groups, but the mature and immature styles did distinguish between patients and healthy controls.