Anaclitic-sociotropic and introjective-autonomic personality dimensions and depressive symptoms: a systematic review

• Published in: Annals of general psychiatry Vol. 20; no. 1; p. 53
• Main Authors: Marfoli, Angelica, Viglia, Federica, Di Consiglio, Micaela, Merola, Sheila, Sdoia, Stefano, Couyoumdjian, Alessandro
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England BioMed Central Ltd 16.12.2021; BioMed Central; BMC
• Subjects: Autonomic personality; Autonomy; Causes of; Cognitive ability; Complicated grief; Complications and side effects; Depression; Depression, Mental; Depressive symptoms; Grief; Hypotheses; Mental depression; Mental disorders; Methods; Personality; Personality traits; Post traumatic stress disorder; Psychological dimensions; Psychotherapy; Review; Sociotropic personality; Suicides & suicide attempts; Systematic review; Italy; Depression; Depressive symptoms; Autonomic personality; Sociotropic personality; Complicated grief; Psychological dimensions
• ISSN: 1744-859X; 1744-859X
• DOI: 10.1186/s12991-021-00373-z

Sociotropy (anaclitic) and autonomy (introjective) are conceptualised as two personality dimensions that confer vulnerability to depression. According to Blatt and Beck's theories, sociotropic individuals exhibit distinctive patterns of symptoms such as prominent anxiety, depressed mood, helplessness, crying and somatic concerns, while self-critical ones seem to exhibit a pattern of symptoms including prominent guilt, hopelessness, feelings of failure and worthlessness and other cognitive symptoms.This systematic review was performed with the aim of investigating whether and to what extent psychological dimensions of anaclitic-sociotropic and introjective-autonomy are related to a specific core of depressive symptoms. The search was conducted in three databases (PubMed, PsycINFO and Scopus) and 27 articles were selected.Results showed a weak association between somatic symptoms and dependent personality traits, while the relationship between self-criticism and cognitive symptomatology was significantly higher. These findings are discussed in the context of future research, necessary to corroborate the existence of a form of depression characterised by somatic features usually ignored by diagnostic criteria, essential to direct psychological treatments to these depressive personality differences.