Differentiation of personality types among opiate addicts

A wide range of studies indicate that although sociopathic characteristics are predominant in opiate addiction, depressive and psychotic features are also frequently observed. To test the hypothesis that there are really three types of individuals who become addicted to opiates (rather than a single, predominant personality style), fifty-three opiate addicts were given the Loevinger Sentence Completion Test, the Bellak Ego Functions Interview, and the Rorschach. Variables derived from these three procedures were submitted to cluster and discriminant function analyses. Three groups of addicts were identified--those primarily with impaired interpersonal relationships and affective lability (42%), those primarily characterized by thought disorder and impaired ego functioning (30%), and a group with diminished ideational and verbal activity (28%). Comparison of the assessment of these three groups with independently defined normal, neurotic, and schizophrenic samples provided support for three opiate-addicted personality types, each respectively characterized as character disordered, borderline psychotic, and depressed. Although there seems to be a predominance of character-disordered individuals who become addicted to opiates, the data indicate several additional types of opiate addicts with different types of psychopathology who may require different approaches to management and treatment.