Object Relations and Interpersonal Problems in Sexually Abused Female Patients: An Empirical Study With the SCORS and the IIP

Abstract

In this study, we examined how retrospective reports of experiencing traumatic sexual abuse in childhood relates to both the development of self-representations and object representations and the occurrence of interpersonal problems. A total of 30 psychosomatic female patients who reported sexual abuse in childhood were compared with a corresponding number of eating-disordered patients and a nonclinical control group. The object relations technique (ORT; Phillipson, 1955), evaluated using the Social Cognition and Object Relations Scale (SCORS; Westen, 1985, 1991b), and the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems (Horowitz, Rosenberg, Baer, & Ureno, 1988) were used to measure the groups. The patients reporting sexual abuse achieved significantly lower scores in the cognitive scales of the SCORS; in the affective scales, they differed from the control group but not from the patients with an eating disorder. Concerning interpersonal problems, the patients reporting childhood sexual abuse reported interpersonal conflicts more frequently. The results of the study support the influence of traumatic sexual abuse on the formation of self-representations and object representations and on the occurrence of interpersonal conflicts.