GENDER DIFFERENCES AND THE DEFENSE-MECHANISM TEST - A COMPARATIVE-STUDY OF ADOLESCENTS IN PSYCHIATRIC-CARE AND HEALTHY CONTROLS

The aim of this paper was to study gender differences in the percept-g enetic method Defense Mechanism Test (DMT) among a group of 60 adolesc ent subjects. Three subgroups were used: patients with psychotic disor ders (Axis 1); borderline personality disorder (Axis 2) according to t he DSM-IV classification system, and a non-patient group. The test pro tocols were scored with respect to 124 DMT variables and analyzed by m eans of the multivariate projection method Partial Least Squares (PLS) in latent structures. The overall results showed considerable gender differences in the whole group as well as in the subgroups. The most s triking finding was that girls compared to boys were characterized by the perceptual defense identification with the opposite sex, which mea ns that they perceived male gestalts instead of females in the stimulu s picture. When both gender and diagnostic group membership were consi dered simultaneously, the influence of diagnostic group membership see med to be stronger than gender even if there was an interaction betwee n diagnoses and gender. It was concluded that gender must be considere d when the DMT is used on adolescent populations.