Self-Oriented Empathy and Personality Organisation Level: Insights from a Psychiatric Sample.

Area of Science:

• Psychiatry
• Psychology
• Empathy Research

Background:

• Empathy is crucial for psychiatric diagnosis.
• The self-oriented empathy dimension is under-researched.
• Previous work suggests links between empathy and personality organization.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if self-oriented empathy better explains personality organization than other empathy facets.
• To determine if self-oriented empathy is independent of specific psychiatric diagnoses.
• To explore the role of empathy in personality organization and psychiatric diagnosis.

Main Methods:

• Evaluated 59 psychiatric inpatients using clinical interviews and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI).
• Assessed personality organization levels using DSM-5 and PDM-2 criteria.
• Employed multinomial models to analyze the relationship between IRI subscales, personality organization, and psychiatric diagnoses.

Main Results:

• Self-oriented empathy (IRI personal distress subscale) was the strongest predictor of personality organization levels.
• No IRI subscale significantly explained psychiatric diagnoses.
• Personality organization levels included psychotic and borderline functioning.

Conclusions:

• Self-oriented empathy is a key factor in personality organization, regardless of psychiatric diagnosis.
• Findings align with evolutionary and psychopathology models like p-factor theory.
• Highlights implications for research and clinical/diagnostic practices in psychiatry.