Personality Styles of German-Speaking Psychotherapists Differ from a Norm, and Male Psychotherapists Differ from Their Female Colleagues

Abstract

Variables pertaining to the person of the psychotherapist have been neglected in psychotherapy research for some time. Concerning personality in particular, however, research has mostly focused on its relation with the psychotherapist’s choice of method, or differences between the various major therapy approaches. That is, psychotherapists were compared to each other without specifying how exactly psychotherapists are in comparison to “ordinary people.” We wanted to know: Are there specific personality styles that distinguish psychotherapists from the norm? A sample of 1,027 psychotherapists from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland filled out the short version of the Personality Style and Disorder Inventory (PSDI-S) via online survey. The PSDI-S is a self-report questionnaire that assesses 14 personality styles, partly related to the non-pathological equivalents of classifiable personality disorders. The psychotherapists were compared to a normative sample of 3,392 people of different professions. The results could be divided into three groups: (1) Large differences in four personality styles that might contribute to relationship skills and may enable psychotherapists to put their own personal opinion aside, show empathy and appreciation, open themselves to the emotional experience of the patient, and provide a trusting relationship. (2) Moderate differences in seven personality styles that are equally indicative of the professional social skills of the psychotherapists, i.e., they were neither submissive nor passive, not excessively helpful, but also not too self-assertive. (3) Hardly any or no differences regarding a charming (histrionic) style, optimism, and conscientiousness. Gender-specific results revealed that male psychotherapists differed from their female colleagues, but they did so differently than men and women in the normative sample do. The main limitations were that we relied on self-report and did not statistically control for gender, age, and education, when comparing to the norm. As a conclusion, German-speaking psychotherapists show personality styles that we interpret as functional for psychotherapeutic practice but this needs corroboration from studies that use different methods and measures.

Significant Differences in Personality Styles of Securely and Insecurely Attached Psychotherapists: Data, Reflections and Implications

“…The data of our 2015 survey (Peter et al, 2017) indicated that the personality styles of N = 1,027 psychotherapists from the three German speaking countries Germany, Austria and Switzerland (DACH countries) differed from the norm (i.e., T-scores of 50 in Figure 1). In 2015 we had divided the personality styles into three groups according to the effect sizes of the differences.…”

“…The mean T-scores of the personality styles of these two groups are depicted in Table 5. They as well as the means of the combined group of the N = 430 can also be seen as personality profiles in Figure 2 together with that of the reference group of the N = 1,027 DACH psychotherapists of 2015 (Peter et al, 2017). When comparing personality styles of securely attached (n = 342) to those of insecurely attached (n = 88) psychological psychotherapists, significant differences were found for the willful/paranoid (PN), spontaneous/borderline (BN), and reserved/schizoid (SZ) styles, as well as for the loyal/ dependent (AB), self-critical/negativistic (NA), unselfish/selfsacrificing (SL), self-critical/avoidant (SU), passive/depressive (DE), and optimistic/rhapsodic (RH) styles.…”

“…In 2015, to address this question, we aimed to achieve a representative survey of therapists from the three Germanspeaking countries Germany (D), Austria (A), and Switzerland (CH) (DACH-countries) (Peter et al, 2017). In total, 1,027 psychotherapists (average age 54 years; 71% female) anonymously completed the short version of the Personality Style and Disorder Inventory (PSDI; Kuhl and Kazén, 2009) which assesses personality styles partly based on non-pathological equivalents of classifiable personality disorders (see Table 1).…”

“…Having found meaningful personality profiles in psychotherapists in 2015 (Peter et al, 2017), we were now, in 2017/18, interested in whether there would also be meaningful differences in the attachment styles of these DACH psychotherapists. With the aim of replicating and expanding our previous findings, we TABLE 2 | Descriptive data and results of t-tests (by equal variances) of the two sub-samples MEG 2 and DACH 2.…”

“…(We refer to this issue in Table 6 and in the "Discussion" section.) According to many studies including ours (Peter and Böbel, 2020;Peter et al, 2014, Peter et al, 2017, the PSDI is a very well-suited instrument to research personality.…”