Construal of self among the „psychiatrized“: Individual differences and hospitalization status.

James Horley, Jaswinder Badesha

Dept. of Psychology, Augustana University College, Camrose, Alberta (Canada)

Abstract
Self-construal among individuals diagnosed with a serious „psychiatric illness“ has been examined infrequently, and many variables possibly related to self-construal and psychological problems (e.g., sex, patient status, type of problem) have yet to be examined in detail. This paper reports on research into a variety of factors that could influence self-construing as predicted by the golden section hypothesis. Roughly 35 individuals who were either psychiatric hospital in-patients or outpatients completed a „self-other“ card-sort procedure to determine their use of positive (e.g., „good“) versus that the mean relative frequency of positive to negative self-labels was differences among subgroups were noted. Female patients, relative to male patients, for example, reported relatively fewer positive self-descriptors. Some clinical implications of these results will be exam-ined.

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