The relationship of frustration reactions and gender role behavior in patients with schizophrenia and affective disorders

Abstract

The study of violations of the adaptive-compensatory mechanisms of patients with mental disorders makes it relevant to study the combined characteristics of gender, psychosexual sphere and response to stress in mental pathology. The aim of the study was to identify the relationship between the types and directions of frustration reactions as unconscious components of coping with gender and gender-role behavior. 183 patients with diagnoses of schizophrenia and schizotypal disorder, recurrent depressive disorder, bipolar affective disorder were examined. In the diagnostic groups, men and women were dominated by persons under the age of 30. The «Method of diagnostics of gender role behavior accentuations» and «Drawing Associations test» were used. The data obtained indicate that among patients with schizophrenia, men with cross-gender role accentuation better assimilate socio-normative patterns of behavior than women with cross-gender role accentuation; in women with schizotypal disorder, the presence of cross-gender accentuation of gender-role behavior is associated with a lower level of social adaptation compared to women without accentuation.Women with schizotypal disorder and more pronounced masculine gender role accentuation have a profile of the direction of emotional reactions in frustrating situations, characteristic of men with schizotypal disorder. In ontogenesis, the interrelationships of stereotypes of emotional response and the level of gender role accentuation change. The revealed sex differences in the profiles of frustration reactions among patients on the schizophrenic spectrum may be partially explained by the gender-role characteristics of patients. In conclusion of the analysis, it can be concluded that the stereotypes of a person’s emotional response and their formation are closely related to gender-role behavior. Knowledge of this kind of interrelationships enables the psychotherapist in the course of treatment to achieve the patient’s understanding of his behavior, including its unconscious aspects.

Keywords

• schizophrenia
• adaptation
• frustration reactions
• gender
• accentuations of gender role behavior