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Measuring overall defensive functioning with the Defense Style Questionnaire: a comparison of different scoring
R W Trijsburg1, A van t' Spijker, H L Van
1Department of Medical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Medical Faculty, Erasmus University Rotterdam, and the Netherlands Institute for Health Sciences.
The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease
|August 6, 2000
Summary
The Defense Style Questionnaire (DSQ) may not divide defenses into immature, neurotic, and mature types. Instead, it effectively measures overall defensive functioning across different populations.
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Psychiatry
- Psychometrics
Background:
- Existing research suggests limitations in the tripartite division (immature, neurotic, mature) of defense mechanisms measured by the Defense Style Questionnaire (DSQ).
- This challenges the current understanding and application of the DSQ in psychological assessment.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the dimensional structure of defense mechanisms assessed by the DSQ.
- To test the hypothesis that defenses can be represented unidimensionally.
- To evaluate the utility of the DSQ in measuring overall defensive functioning.
Main Methods:
- Study 1: Applied classical multidimensional scaling to expert maturity ratings of DSQ items (n=279).
- Study 2: Employed confirmatory factor analysis to test two three-factor models of the DSQ using psychiatric outpatient data (n=543).
- Study 3: Assessed the discriminative validity of overall defensive functioning scores across psychiatric outpatients, medical students, and graduate students.
Main Results:
- Multidimensional scaling indicated that DSQ items can be represented unidimensionally.
- Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that both tested three-factor models of the DSQ were implausible.
- Overall defensive functioning scores effectively discriminated between clinical and non-clinical samples and correlated positively with Global Assessment of Functioning in psychiatric patients.
Conclusions:
- The findings challenge the traditional categorization of defense mechanisms within the DSQ.
- The DSQ appears to be a valid instrument for assessing overall defensive functioning.
- The unidimensional representation of defenses offers a more robust measure for clinical and research applications.
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