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Aim of this work was empirical assessment of the different components of couple relationship in a general population sample, through the construction and validation
Work described in this paper was discussed in the 2009 edition of the Research Training Program organized by the International Psychoanalytic Association. The first author thanks Peter Fonagy and Patrick Luyten in particular for their most useful comments and suggestions.
of an inventory composed of items based on psychoanalytic theories, the analysis of its factor structure and of the relationship of factor scores with other relevant variables. A group of 15 psychoanalysts developed 48 4-point items pertaining to the following areas, drawn from the most relevant psychoanalytic theories: Eroticism/Passion; Tenderness/Attachment/Care; Security/Fidelity; Dependence; Illusion/Idealization; Pregenital Aspects; Destructiveness; Play Capacity; Similarity/ Difference of Partner from Parental Figures; and Alterity/Fusionality. After pilot administration to 100 subjects and refinement, the inventory was administered to 610 general population subjects (324 females) aged between 25 and 60, living together with a heterosexual partner for at least 12 months. Subjects were also administered a Marital Satisfaction Scale, the Experiences in Close Relationships Scale Revised (ECR-R) and measures of relevant sociodemographic variables. Factor Analysis yielded five factors, explaining 34.89% of variance, labeled: Idealization/Persecution, Attunement, Mistrust, Erotic Fantasies, and Dependence. Attunement explained the highest proportion of variance, thus emerging as the most relevant dimension. Another prominent finding was the coalescence of items originally conceived to measure the presence of oedipal, pregenital, and destructive components in a single factor, Erotic Fantasies. Internal reliability was satisfactory for all factorial scales. Marital Satisfaction correlated positively with Attunement and Dependence, and negatively with Idealization/Persecution, Mistrust and Erotic Fantasies. Secure subjects appeared high on Attunement, Fantasies and Dependence; Avoidant subjects appeared high on Mistrust, low in Attunement, Fantasies and Dependence; Anxious subjects appeared high in Fantasies and Dependence, low in Attunement.