Underlying personality differences between alcohol/substance-use disorder patients with and without an affective disorder

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), a popular personality test, was use d to profile the personalities of in-patient alcoholics/substance-use disor der patients who had, and those who did not have, a concurrent affective di sorder diagnosis. The MBTI divides individuals into eight categories: Extro verts and Introverts, Sensors and Intuitives, Thinkers and Feelers, and Jud gers and Perceivers. Alcoho/substance-use disorder patients with no affecti ve disorder differed from a normative population only in being significantl y more often Sensing and significantly less often Intuitive single-factor t ypes. The Extroverted/Sensing/Feeling/Judging four-factor type was also sig nificantly over-represented in this group, compared to a normative populati on. In contrast, mood-disordered alcohol/substance-use disorder patients we re significantly more often Introverted, Sensing, Feeling, and Perceiving a nd significantly less often Extroverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Judging s ingle-factor types. They were also significantly more often Introverted/Sen sing/Feeling/Perceiving and Introverted/Intuitive/Feeling/Perceiving four-f actor types. 'Pure alcohol/substance-use disorder patients differed from al cohol/substance-use disorder patients with a mood disorder in that they wer e significantly more often Extroverted and Thinking and significantly less often Introverted and Feeling single-factor types; and significantly less o ften were an Introverted/Sensing/Feeling/Perceiving four-factor type. The a bove results may have psychogenetic, diagnostic, and psychotherapeutic impl ications.