Investigating personal constructs of self, health, ilness, psychologist and psychiatrist in depressive and anxious patients

Abstract

Forty-two depressive subjects and fifty-eight subjects with anxiety disorder were studied using the repertory grid in their first consultation in a Mental Health Center. Twenty-nine constructs were examined; they were related to the self, health/disease (physical and mental), the psychologist and the psychiatrist and several therapies. We used the principal component technique for data analysis. The results showed that depressive subjects had lower self-esteem than anxious; both groups constructed the psychologist and the psychiatrist near the constructs ideal father and cure; the construct mental disease was constructed as refused.