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Successful psychoanalytic treatment should be accompanied by shifts from overdependence and detachment to healthy dependency. This last is seen in flexible, situation-appropriate seeking of help and support (Bornstein and Languirand 2003). Until recently, however, no psychometrically sound instruments have been available to assess this shift in the clinical setting. The Relationship Profile Test (RPT)—a thirtyitem self-report measure of these three constructs—was developed to fill this gap. Construct validity evidence for the RPT is promising: RPT scores show excellent 85-week retest reliability and predictable associations with scores on measures of related traits (Bornstein et al. 2003). This study examined relations between RPT scores and measures of attachment style, identity, relatedness, and affect in a mixed-sex sample of ninety young adults.
Two measures were administered in addition to the RPT: (1) the Adult Attachment Scale, or AAS (Collins and Read 1990); and (2) the Inventory of Altered Self-Capacities, or IASC (Briere 1998), a widely used measure of identity, relatedness, and affect regulation.
On the AAS, overdependence was associated with insecure attachment, detachment was associated with distrust and discomfort with closeness, and healthy dependency was associated with security and an absence of abandonment fears. On the IASC, overdependence was associated with identity impairment and susceptibility to external influence, whereas detachment was associated with difficulty regulating negative affect. Healthy dependency was associated with optimism, self-confidence, and stable identity.
The present findings—along with those of Bornstein et al. (2003)— provide strong evidence supporting the construct validity of the RPT. If the RPT continues to yield promising results, it may prove a useful tool