Psychological tests of 32 borderline or nonborderline (psychotic) patients were compared with the structural diagnoses arrived at on the basis of two kinds of clinical-research interviews: The DIB (following Gunderson's criteria) and the structural interview (following Kernberg's criteria). Test results were reported in terms of the diagnosis based on the full test battery, as well as in terms of the structural diagnosis implied by the presence or absence of thinking disturbances on the (structured) WAIS as compared with the (unstructured) Rorschach test. Statistically significant agreement was shown among these four approaches.
The use of psychological tests in the diagnosis of borderline conditions by application of five approaches to the test battery is illustrated on a patient who was diagnosed as borderline by the criteria of both Gunderson and Kernberg. These approaches in terms of (a) structural variables, (b) response to confrontation, (c) severity of illness, (d) symptom diagnosis, and (e) differential response to tests of varying structure, may be used to strengthen each other and to facilitate the diagnosis of borderline patients.
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