Linguistic characteristics of neurotic, borderline and psychotic personality organization

Thirty patients were subjected to a Structural Interview by means of which 10 of them received the diagnosis NPO (Neurotic Personality Organization), 10 BPO (Borderline Personality Organization) and 10 PPO (Psychotic Personality Organization). About 2500 words and groups of words were extracted from the patients' utterances for analysis. The word-frequencies thus found were analyzed by a PLS discriminant analysis which yielded two significant principal components (main dimensions) explaining 57% of the variance. This analysis showed that the three groups of patients are well separated from one another and that there is a definite correlation between personality organization and linguistic variables. The main features of the BPO-patients in this study seem to be that they refer to positions outside themselves and their language is impersonal; we see this as an example of a vacillating identity. The NPO-group is characterized by an intense and rich language, signs of a more advanced symbolizing ability, deixis and high level defenses. The language of the PPO-patients is poor and its predominant feature is a lack of words; in our interpretation this indicates foreclosure and a lack of identity.