Examining Trauma Symptoms and Interpersonal Dependency within Incarcerated Psychopathic and Non-psychopathic Women

ABSTRACT

The histories of incarcerated women exhibit a multitude of personality issues including psychopathy, trauma, and interpersonal dependency. Two studies were undertaken to better understand these issues with psychopathic (PCL-R ≥ 30; N = 115) and non-psychopathic (PCL-R ≤ 24; N = 53) women incarcerated for drug, theft, fraud, violence, and sex offenses. In the first study, trauma symptoms were compared on Rorschach variables, TSI-2, and PAI scales. The female psychopathic group experienced more problems related to intrusive experiences and dissociation (TSI-2, Rorschach). In the second study, interpersonal dependency was also examined with the PAI, TSI-2, and Rorschach. The psychopathic females had higher rates of interpersonal dependency (PAI, Rorschach). Based on our findings we discuss the relationship between trauma and interpersonal dependency and the meaning of these testing variables and concepts within the personality functioning of these antisocial women.

KEYWORDS:

• Trauma
• dependency
• psychopathy
• incarcerated women
• assessment
• Rorschach
• PAI
• PCL-R
• TSI-2

Ethical Standards and Informed Consent

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation of the prisons where data were collected and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. Informed consent was obtained from all participants for being included in the study.

Disclosure of Interest

No disclosures of interest to report.

Notes

¹ Using Exner’s (2003) Comprehensive System (CS), the TCI is the sum of 1) Blood (Bl), 2) Anatomy (An), 3) Sex (Sx), 4) Morbid (MOR; i.e., something is torn, broken, damaged) and 5) Aggressive Movement (AG) divided by the total number of responses (R).

² CritCont% is scored the same way as the TCI with the addition of Explosion (Ex), Fire (Fi), and X-ray (Xy; included in the An in R-PAS) being added to Bl, An, Sx, MOR, and AG, and then divided by R.

³ Though the psychopathic women had higher DOM scores than the non-psychopathic women (see Table 2), it does not mean these women are more dominant per se. It just suggests that the psychopathic women are more assertive than the non-psychopathic women and better able to get others to attend to their interpersonal needs.