Qualities of object relations and field dependence in alcoholic and recovered alcoholic males

Contemporary research suggests an interaction among disordered cognitive, perceptual, and object relational ego functions in the etiology of alcohol abuse. The present study hypothesizes a correlation between extreme field dependence, representing an impairment in cognitive-synthetic functioning, and poor self-other differentiation and clarity of object representation, characterizing impaired object relations functioning. Groups of normals, alcoholics, remitted alcoholics, and psychiatric inpatients (30 Ss each) were administered the Embedded Figures Test and measures of quality of self-other differentiation. The groups tended to differ in severity of impairments as predicted, and a positive correlation was found across the entire sample between inadequate self-other differentiation and cognitive field dependence, although this correlation did not produce a significant group effect. The evidence of impairment among remitted alcoholics suggests that the impairments demonstrated cannot be attributed to current alcohol abuse.