Relation of intelligence to ego functioning in an adult psychiatric population

Intelligence as a predictor of outcome in short- and long-term psychotherapy

Intelligence has been suggested as a suitability factor for short-term therapy whereas its possible effect on short-term versus long-term therapy still is unknown. The aim of this study was to compare the prediction of intelligence on the level of psychiatric symptoms and psychosocial functioning in psychotherapies of different lengths. A total of 251 outpatients from the Helsinki Psychotherapy Study, aged 20–46 years, and suffering from mood or anxiety disorders were allocated to two long-term and two short-term therapies. Intelligence was assessed at baseline with the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-R). Psychiatric symptoms and psychosocial functioning were assessed 5–10 times during a 5-year follow-up using two primary symptom measures (HDRS and HARS) and one primary measure of psychosocial functioning (GAF). Short-term therapy was more effective than long-term therapy during the first year of follow-up. During the second to fourth follow-up year no differences between short- and long-term therapies or the intelligence groups were found. At the fifth follow-up year, however, long-term psychotherapy showed a statistically significantly larger change in all three primary measures compared to short-term therapy among those with higher intelligence. No differences between therapy groups were noted in those with lower intelligence. People with higher intelligence may benefit more from long-term than from short-term psychotherapy. These findings should be confirmed.

A critique of Lilienfeld et al.'s (2000) "The scientific status of projective techniques"

Lilienfeld, Wood, and Garb (2000) published a largely negative critique of the validity and reliability of projective methods, concentrating on the Comprehensive System for the Rorschach (Exner, 1993), 3 systems for coding the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT; Murray, 1943) cards, and human figure drawings. This article is an effort to document and correct what I perceive as errors of omission and commission in the Lilienfeld et al. article. When projective measures are viewed in the light of these corrections, the evidence for the validity and clinical usefulness of the Rorschach and TAT methods is more robust than Lilienfeld et al. represented.

IQ as a prognostic indicator in adult psychiatric first-admissions

This study used IQ, along with measures of premorbid adjustment, health-sickness, symptom level, diagnostic severity and demographic data, to predict to 2-year outcome measures of level of functioning, health-sickness, and symptoms for a sample of 145 adult psychiatric first-admissions. It was hypothesized that IQ as an indicator of cognitive ability, or of general ability to adapt, would predict positively to improvement over the 2-year period. Data analysis was conducted with bivariate correlations and multiple regressions, using both absolute-level and residualized outcome variables. IQ showed modest, significant relationships with all absolute outcome indices and six of seven residualized measures, especially for a subsample of those with non-average IQ scores. Regressions showed that IQ provided independent prediction of symptom outcomes.