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Abstract
The study concerns changes over the full past decade in the psychic state of juvenile delinquents. Five juvenile delinquent groups (N=13 in each group), tested in 1981, 1982‐84,1990‐92,1994‐95, and 1997‐98, respectively, a normal control group (N = 64), and an adult borderline group (N= 12) participated. Use was made of a projective method, the Percept‐genetic Object‐Relation Test, PORT. The juvenile delinquents showed greater signs of psychopathology in PORT than the normal controls, those tested in 1981‐84 displaying signs of depression and identity diffusion ("wrong gender"), in contrast to those tested in 1990‐98, who showed signs in particular of dissolution anxiety, lack of attachment relationships, and transitional phenomena. The signs found in the latter group were similar to those of the borderline patients, investigated around 1985. The results suggest a dramatic and alarming change in the intrapsychic state of juvenile delinquents today as compared with a full decade ago.