THE RELATIONSHIP OF PREMORBID PERSONALITY TO SUBTYPES OF AN AFFECTIVE-ILLNESS - A REPLICATION STUDY BY MEANS OF AN OPERATIONALIZED PROCEDURE FOR THE DIAGNOSIS OF PERSONALITY STRUCTURES

The hypothesis of a relationship between types of premorbid personalit y and subtypes of an affective illness was tested on the basis of a di agnostically 'blind' assignment of biographical case history data on p atients' premorbid development to patterns of personality traits. Data sets of 261 cases with various psychiatric disorders were examined. T he rater (R.T.) had to score each item in a list of traits relevant fo r the diagnosis of the types that had been conceived by D.v.Z. and J.P . The assignment of the ratings to the type concepts was then performe d by means of a computer programme. The results regarding the distribu tion of types over the clinical diagnoses yielded a statistically sign ificant association of the 'affective types' of premorbid personality ('melancholic type' and 'manic type') with affective disorders and the 'neurotoid types' ('anxious insecure type' and 'nervous tense type') with non-affective disorders. Previous findings on the basis of a glob al rating of types in a smaller sample (n = 42) regarding personality types and subtypes of an affective illness could be replicated by mean s of the new, operationalized procedure in an enlarged sample (n = 80) : On the one hand, a marked preponderance of the 'manic type' of perso nality was found in bipolar I patients, particularly pronounced in tho se with a predominantly manic course of the disorder; on the other han d, the 'melancholic type' of personality prevailed in bipolar II and u nipolar depressive patients.