Psihološka Obzorja (Dec 2000)
Janez Rugelj's alternative therapeutic community after the five-factor model of personality
Abstract
The Alternative Therapeutic Community (ATC) of Dr. J. Rugelj is a specific social community consisting of people in distress (always consisting of about 120 people), who have all been handicapped in their lives in one way or another. The group is also specific because of their way towards recovery, i.e., intensively reactivating the mecanisms of healthy life to surmount their psychical and social deficiency. The results of measuring the structure of personality according to BFQ – the "Big Five" model of personality – show that the ATC as a whole achieves lower scores than the normal population on all dimensions and subdimensions. The difference is statistically significant regarding the dimension of Emotional stability as well as the subdimension Emotional control. The ATC is not a uniform group, so the results differ according to the diagnosis. The members with the diagnosis of 'a neurotic' or 'a psychotic' achieve below-average results, while the accompanying members achieve similar results as the control group (selected from the non-members of the ATC). The results of the members diagnosed as 'an alcoholic' are somewhat surprising – they do not differ considerably on any dimension or subdimension from the results achieved by the control group – not even on the Emotional stability scale. As regards the total period of staying in the program, the results of subdimensions remain mostly unchanged. However, during the time spent in the program the results on the subdimensions change: the group which has been in the program for 1 to 2 years generally scores higher than the group of beginners (the difference is statistically significant only for the dimension Emotional control), but the results of the group participating in the program for longer time (more than three years) are lower again, until they stabilize in the central position (T=50). The results on theHonesty scale (which may also show positive or negative self-image) show no particularity unless cluster analysis is applied, which points out that the average result is the consequence of high and low values of the sub-groups, which undoubtedly demands further research.
