Maladaptive antisocial aggressive behavior and outlets for intimacy

Psychotherapy research literature suggests that maladjustment and self-disclosure patterns are related. Male psychiatric patients (23-37 years) were selected according to a stratified random sampling procedure with conditions for Ss: (a) who actually have engaged in maladaptive antisocial aggression (N = 41); (b) who exhibited aggressive impulses, urges, or fantasies (N = 111); and (c) who served as patient (N = 105) and non-patient (N = 137) controls. Results of this study supported the prediction that those patients who actually engaged in maladaptive antisocial aggression employed fewer outlets for self-disclosure than any of the other patient or non-patient groupings. Clinical implications that concerned the actual range of an individual's outlets for intimacy as predictive of maladaptive antisocial aggression in male adults were discussed.