Mental health and psychic structure: an empirical study

Psychodynamic clinicians cite psychic structure and structural changes observed in treatment as sources of important information about unconscious psychological processes and configurations. Empirical studies have had difficulty demonstrating that psychic structure measures something different from psychiatric symptoms and everyday functioning. This study examined the relationship between psychic structure and mental health using the Health-Sickness Rating Scale (HSRS) to measure mental health and two different measures to assess psychic structure: Kernberg's personality organization (PO) and Wallerstein's Scales of Psychological Capacities (PSYCAP). Bivariate correlations and multiple regression analyses were computed based on ratings for 124 psychiatric inpatients and psychotherapy clients. Correlations showed that mental health and psychic structure are substantially interrelated, and multiple regression analyses indicated that 44% of the variance of HSRS is explained by psychic structure measured with the two methods taken together. The findings provide some support for a general factor of mental health and psychic structure and a "pure" component of psychic structure that is independent from mental health. Different factor-analytic models for understanding the relationship between mental health and psychic structure are discussed.