To replicate and extend Cramer's (1987) original cross-sectional study concerning the development of defense mechanisms, the Thematic Apperception Test responses of 148 students in Grades 2, 5, 8, 11, and college freshmen were collected and scored for denial, projection, and identification using Cramer's Defense Mechanisms Manual (1991). Our results supported the notion that the relative use of denial and projection decreases and identification increases as a function of grade level. The findings provide additional support for the psychoanalytic view (Freud, 1966) of an ontogenetic developmental line of defense.

We examined the differences between narcissism, mode of defense, and level of aggression on the Rorschach. We also investigated differences in borderline, narcissistic, and Cluster C personality disorders by examining responses to Rorschach content variables. The Lerner Defense Scale (P. Lerner & H. Lerner, 1980), the aggressive content section of the Holt (1977) method for assessing primary process manifestations, a modified version of Exner's (1986a) Egocentricity Index, Wagner's (1965) exhibitionistic M score, and grandiosity were scored on the Rorschach protocols of 17 borderline, 17 narcissistic, and 17 Cluster C personality disorders. Borderlines were found to employ primitive defensive structures to a greater degree and severity, show more intense and overall aggression as well as more responses on the three forms of aggression in the Holt method, and have higher levels of grandiosity. Narcissists evinced significantly higher levels of egocentricity than borderlines and higher levels of idealization than the Cluster C group. Convergent validity was found on the measures of defense and aggression, which showed a strong relationship between primitive aggression and primitive defense.

Our objective was to develop a personality profile of men who are violent toward their partners. A total of 52 experienced clinicians described either a current male patient who was violent toward his partner (and only toward his partner) or who was maritally distressed but nonviolent using the Shedler-Westen Assessment Procedure-200 (SWAP-200), a Q-sort instrument designed to harness the judgments of clinicians. Partner-violent patients showed significantly higher scores on the SWAP-200 antisocial and borderline personality disorder scales. In contrast, patients who were maritally distressed evidenced higher scores on the SWAP-200 obsessive, avoidant, and high-functioning depressive scales. The men who were violent toward their partners were more antisocial and emotionally dysregulated, which is consistent with theory, and less obsessive, which has not been theoretically explored. The groups did not differ on theoretically important dimensions of personality including paranoid, dependent, and hostile features.

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We extended prior research on the medical health-correlates of forgiving others by examining the relationship between self-forgiveness, other-forgiveness and health. Results derived from a cross-sectional survey of 266 healthy undergraduates showed that these dimensions of forgiveness were positively related to perceived physical health. Regression analysis revealed that self-forgiveness uniquely predicted a significant amount of variance in perceived physical health, and predicted more variance than did other-forgiveness. These results are discussed in light of the limitations of the current study and directions for future research.

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Axis II diagnoses). Analyses focused on the construct validity of object representations and the implications of structural and affective aspects of object representations for psychopathology. Results support the construct validity of object representations and an affective, but not a cognitive-structural, linkage between object representations and pathology.

A correlational study (N == 701) examined three measures of narcissism, a measure of shame, two measures of masochism, a measure of object relations, and a measure of social desirability. Moderate correlations were found for a core of constructs which have been described in the clinical and theoretical literature. These are narcissism, shame, object relations, and masochism. Narcissism seemed to divide into two different styles, a "phallic," grandiose style and a narcissistically vulnerable style. Shame primarily accounted for the differences in these styles, correlating negatively with the grandiose style, positively with the more vulnerable style. The narcissistically vulnerable style correlated more with the core pathology measures; that is, object relations and masochism. Social desirability did not mediate the relationship between grandiose narcissism and shame. Only small univariate gender differences were found, but masochism was a better predictor of shame in women than was narcissism whereas there was little difference between masochism and narcissism for predicting shame in men.