Psychology in Russia: State of the Art • 2012

Affective-Cognitive Differentiation
and Integrity as a Dispositional Factor
in Personality and Behavioral Disorders
Elena T. Sokolova
Lomonosov Moscow State University
Moscow, Russia

The article describes the development of an integrative bio-psycho-social model

of personality disorders. This model is based on the interconnection of intellect,
self-regulation, self-identity, and social relationships. The prognostic value of the
category of “affective-cognitive style” is estimated on the grounds of a meta-anal-
ysis of various empirical studies and theoretical models. The article discusses the
results of clinical and experimental studies that specify the functions of cognitive
differentiation and integrity and of symbolic mediation and reflection in the regu-
lation of the content, emotional valence, temporal stability, and spatial organiza-
tion of intrapsychic representations of self and interpersonal relationships, as well
as the systemic organization of defense and coping operations.
Keywords: Affective-cognitive style as theoretical construct, systemic differen-
tiation\ integration, Vygotsky’s methodological paradigm, clinical, experimental
studies, personality disorders.

The development of any system can be comprehended in terms of

differentiation and integration, which imply the growth of the system’s
complexity and the degree of specialization and segregation of its sub-
systems, as well as their interaction (horizontal and vertical). Differen-
tiation and integration secure the cohesiveness of the system as a whole.
Pathological processes of any origin lead to structural and functional re-
organization of the system along with its substructures. Illness simplifies
microstructures, blurs the borders of subsystems (degrades their articu-
lation), and neutralizes qualitative differences among them by making
them even; as a result it impoverishes the system functionally and lessens
the quality of adaptation. Another consequence of pathological develop-
ment is a reduction in the number of bonds inside and outside the sys-
186 Elena T. Sokolova

tem, which damages the plasticity, the stability, and the continuity of the
whole system (Chuprikova, 2007; Levin, 1935; Sokolova, 1995; Vygotsky,
1956, 1982; Werner, Kaplan, 1963; Witkin, Lewis, Hertzman et al., 1954;
Witkin & Goodenough, 1981).
As an example, let’s examine the ontogeny of the system of self-
identity, where interpersonal communication between a child and an
adult evokes the “need” for a special “organ” of self-regulation – for self-
defense against the fear of absorption (annihilation) or against the dif-
fuse “mergence” in the growing complexity of relationships with people.
The adult becomes the “significant other,” who evokes in the child a new
specific need and a new circle of life tasks: to “build” oneself (defining
self as distinct from the other), to mark out the borders of one’s personal
self, and to defend one’s autonomous existence – and at the same time
to preserve one’s emotional bond with other people, recasting the feel-
ing of emotional dependence into the feeling of community, of kindred
spirits. The “making” of identity is inseparable from the dialectical unity
of processes of differentiation and integration, exercised through verti-
cal hierarchization as well as through the integration, assemblage, and
harmonization of horizontally coexisting structures (subpersonalities,
types of identities, situational identifications, facade self-representations,
deep selfhood, etc.). Therefore one grows in integration, self-consistency,
inner continuity of self-identity, and along with the feeling of personal
autonomy and individuality one develops an ability to experience oneself
as part of different types of social communities.

Examination of Theories and

of Trends in Experimental Research
In order to understand the history of the issue it is helpful to outline
the ideas of authors who have emphasized the interrelationship of both
problems of self-identity, self-regulation, and the development of indi-
viduality and overcoming the conflict of urges and intentions (quasi-
needs) that arise from the interaction of self and environment (field)
(Levin, 1935; Witkin, Lewis, Hertzman et al., 1954). In their theoretical
and empirical investigations these authors and their disciples were the
first to note the importance of the divergence of two types of self-reg-
ulation in the course of individual development: the inferior, instinc-
tive, and largely consciously uncontrollable “defenses” as opposed to the
 Affective-Cognitive Differentiation and Integrity as a Dispositional Factor… 187

“controls” – the products of the conscious, social-cognitive conditioning

and development of the individuality of the self (Hartmann, 1951, Rapa-
port, 1951). The defense mechanisms per se were regarded as a limited
group of the relatively “primitive” operations subserving the ego in the
conflict of instinctive urges. It is assumed that in contrast to them the
mechanisms of control (or self-control) are generated by the conflict-
free sphere of the ego (Hartmann, 1951) and can be used for perception,
evaluation, adjustment to reality – not only without damage to the self
but actually taking into account its “inner” individual characteristics.
These characteristics are viewed as sui generis mediators, go-betweens
in an individual’s problem solving: how to balance the inner demands
of one’s individual intentionality with “pressures” coming from the out-
er world, from social conditions, and from the interpersonal environ-
ment. Psychological survival and adjustment to the social environment
are achieved not so much by primitive and infantile means (defensive
ignoring and unconscious distortions) but, quite differently and more
maturely, by active, conscious efforts to perceive precisely, to explore, to
categorize. The further development of this approach led to theoretical
and empirical studies of “cognitive controls” and coping mechanisms
and their more or less complex integral patterns, which constitute the
“style of self-regulation” along with the defense mechanisms. These were
the origins of the trend to understand cognitive style as an individual
adjustment system of self-control and self-regulation that is developed
by the structure of the self in interaction with the social environment
and then becomes a mediator itself and determines all the diversity of
relationships of the self with significant social environments.
Generated by the interaction of ideas from psychoanalysis, cogni-
tive psychology, developmental psychology, personology, and gestalt
psychology, these new theoretical guidelines (“New Look”) became a
catalyst for the development of a new research paradigm. In the 1950s
and 1960s Witkin summarized the results of his 20 years’ research on
individual differences of perception in extreme environments and gave
compelling experimental proofs that cognitive style (the degree of field
dependence vs. autonomy and differentiation) corresponds to the type of
the whole personality organization, including self-esteem, defenses, and
interpersonal attitudes. This paradigm allowed Witkin to view cognitive
style as an operational indicator of one of the most generalized charac-
teristics of the systemic organization of personality – the “globality” vs
188 Elena T. Sokolova

the analyticity of its cognitive style (including normal and pathologi-

cal neuropsychological mechanisms) (Witkin, Lewis, Hertzman et al.,
1954). My colleagues and I started our own research on the role of cogni-
tive style as a psychological mechanism for creating “distortions” of self-
consciousness in abnormalities of personality (Sokolova, 1976, 1989) by
specifying and theoretically deepening Witkin’s idea.
To explain the premise and the design and results of further em-
pirical studies, it is necessary to give a detailed theoretical and empirical
definition of the construct of self-identity, as it was one of the central
concepts in our research. Let’s remember the insights of L.S. Vygotsky
on the systemic character of mental development and disintegration and
set up some dimensions for the theoretical examination of the issue. The
ontogeny of self-identity is a journey from a fragmented, situational,
partial, “fractional” self-image to a cohesive and generalized one, from
emotionally unstable, affectively charged, and undifferentiated represen-
tations of the self and the other to a differentiated, elaborate, and cog-
nitively and emotionally balanced system that is able to organize and
“withhold” contradictory and ambivalent experiences. In the course of
development, this system becomes increasingly independent of the im-
mediate effects of satisfaction and frustration and of affective oppositions
of good and bad. In other words, the development of self-identity can be
understood as the growing differentiation of situational identifications
from the immediate influence of affects to the advanced mechanisms of
self-regulation, which is able to provide the whole system with increas-
ing stability (“constancy”), integrity, and coherence. We can further con-
clude that the key factor in normal and abnormal functioning is the level
of the self-regulation mechanisms. Thus, the “primitive level” of defense
mechanisms is typical for borderline personality organization and can-
not ensure the stability and integrity of the self faced with frustrations in
interpersonal interactions.
The value of the concepts of field dependence and low cognitive
differentiation for understanding the development and disintegration
of self-identity can be seen in the context of Vygotsky’s systemic theory
of development. In ontogeny these qualities of the structural and func-
tional organization of identity determine the pattern of interplay of var-
ious psychic processes, while in illness they determine the modification
of connections and relationships of psychic processes (“subsystems”)
because of their disintegration in the malignantly changed “social situa-
 Affective-Cognitive Differentiation and Integrity as a Dispositional Factor… 189

tion of development.” The most general logic of the development of sys-

tems suggests some progression from a conglomerate, undifferentiated,
conjoint solidity to differentiation and formation of the clearly defined
boundaries of subsystems as a necessary condition for their interaction
and further integration into a coherent whole. Vygotsky pointed at the
necessity of taking into account the quality of the relationships between
affect and intellect as a criterion for individual personality development
and virtually suggested the structure-functional model of psychopa-
thology. “In a sense,” he writes, “there exists functional equivalence be-
tween a high level of personality differentiation and personal flexibility
in definite situations and tasks” (Vygotsky, 1983, p. 241). In his theory
of the disintegration of concepts in schizophrenia Vygotsky develops
the idea of a correlation between the disintegration of the conceptual
system (up to the primitive levels of complexes and syncretisms) and
the qualitatively different level of relationships not only between affec-
tive and cognitive processes but also in the whole system of relations
of the self to reality. According to Vygotsky, “In schizophrenia… com-
plex systems dissolve, the affects return to their initial primitive state,
lose their connection with thinking. …The affects begin to change [a
person’s] thinking. His thinking is a thinking that serves emotional
interests and needs” (1982, p. 126). And “in schizophrenia changes in
personality and perception of reality result directly from the regression
of thinking from the level of concepts to the level of complexes” (1956,
p. 494). One can assume that the dissolution of concepts to the primi-
tive stages of complexes and syncretisms – that is, the shift of the whole
cognitive system to the genetically earlier and more “primitive” level of
functioning – creates those essentially new relationships between cog-
nition and motivation, perception and attitude, that correspond to the
field-dependent and undifferentiated affective-cognitive style. In this
context the analytical “dimensions” of style can be understood as indi-
cators of balance and the quality of the relationships between “natural,”
impulsive, sensory-motor, affective-sensuous motivational processes on
the one side and culturally mediated, rational, and reflexive processes
on the other. These relationships determine the systemic formation and
the functioning of self-identity, the level of cognitive mediation (and, in
this sense, of “cultural” maturity) of defensive strategies and processes
of reality control, the quality of reality testing in the sense of its cogni-
tive acquisition, the intuitive “grasping” of meaning, and the insightful
190 Elena T. Sokolova

and empathic understanding of other people. Thus, field dependence

and low differentiation coincide with the situational level of general-
ization, with a deficit of the ability to symbolize, literality, exactness of
representational thinking, confinement within the limits of a particu-
lar situation, difficulties in understanding metaphors (in other words,
narrow-mindedness in a given situation), and a deficit of creative imagi-
nation and empathy, which resembles the phenomena of “mechanistic,”
“operational” thinking as defined by French psychoanalysts (Marty &
M’Uzan, 2000).
Similar regularities were theoretically predicted, explained, and re-
peatedly confirmed in our studies. We obtained reliable data on the cor-
relation of low cognitive differentiation with instability of self-image,
diffused self-other boundaries, manipulative communication strategies,
and a primitively sensuous level of defense operations, which blur social
perception and cause biased distortions, prejudices, and loss of distinct
orientation in the world of interpersonal relationships.
According to our model, primary disorders of self-identity (insta-
bility, disintegration, “diffusion”) together with secondary compensato-
ry defense structures (a predominance of archaic narcissistic processes)
can be described as “poles” of the affective-cognitive style. To define the
level of the structural organization of self-identity we have used two
qualities of mental systemic organization  – a low level of differentia-
tion of boundaries of mental subsystems, including their poor clarity
and accuracy (articulation), and field dependence. These psychological
mechanisms are responsible for structural disintegration, the temporal
instability of self-attitude, and the poorly functioning autonomy of self-
esteem. With our meta-analysis as well as many years of research on
the so-called distortions of self-consciousness and their relationship to
one’s personal cognitive style (Sokolova, 1989, 1995; Sokolova, Burla-
kova, & Leontiu, 2001, 2002; Sokolova & Iljina, 2000; Sokolova & Kors-
hunova, 2007; Sokolova & Sotnikova, 2006a), we’ve been able to specify
the role of the affective-cognitive style as the psychological predictor of
the disintegration of the structure and the functions of self-identity in
borderline and narcissistic personality disorders, to describe persistent
“distortions” of self-image on the bodily and categorical levels of self-
consciousness in comorbid diseases – chronic neuroses, depression, hy-
pochondria, food addiction, and suicide – and to find equivalent struc-
tures of self-consciousness in female prostitutes, with their promiscuity
 Affective-Cognitive Differentiation and Integrity as a Dispositional Factor… 191

and high victimhood, because of insufficiently defined, blurred, and

hence accessible-for-intrusion borders of the self.

Summary of Research
Our research paradigm was developed on the basis of such psy-
chological phenomena as “tolerance for ambiguity” (Adorno, Frenkel-
Brunswik, Levinson, & Sanford, 1950; Sokolova, 1976), which was mod-
eled in experimental settings by varying the degree of physical, semantic,
and conceptual ambiguity. The standard experimental scheme consisted
of the Embedded Figures Test, the scale of articulation by Witkin (Wit-
kin, Lewis, Hertzman et al., 1954; Witkin & Goodenough, 1981); the Ror-
schach Test and the Thematic Apperception Test with scales of affective-
cognitive differentiation/integration by Blatt (Blatt, 1990, Blatt & Lerner
1983); mutuality (Urist, 1977), hostility (Elizur, 1949, Katko, Gregory,
Meyer, Mihura, & Bombel, 2009); the test of body-field perceptual dif-
ferentiation by (Fischer & Cleveland, 1968) and other specific tests.
According to the results of our studies, patients at the pole of overde-
pendence show (with certain individual variations) a generalized tenden-
cy for global psychological overdependence; difficulty in “distinguishing
one’s self from the field,” including equating one’s own self-esteem with
the appraisals of significant others (“echo self-esteem”); temporal insta-
bility in the system of self-estimations, together with their insufficient
generalization and difficulty in integrating negative and positive self-
estimations into a cohesive and consistent self-image; a predominance
of isolated and poorly structured sensory-motor and sensuous-bodily
(vs categorical) levels of self-image; a low tolerance for stress induced
by a failure or a criticism (high stress accessibility and weakness of the
borders of the self); and a tendency toward negative self-attitude and
toward self-rejection.
Their defense structures are characterized by a low level of differen-
tiation, specialization, and cognitive mediation (“primitive defenses” of
global action, different variations of sensuous-affective “saturation,” and
motor acting out), and, therefore, they have limited abilities to “translate”
unconscious into categorical structures and to designate, symbolize, and
control them consciously. Their relationships with significant others can
be maintained exclusively by means of intrapsychic and interpersonal
manipulations, which, in this sense, become the behavioral equivalent
192 Elena T. Sokolova

of primitive defense operations for “mastering” and control of affects,

generated by conflict between yearning for symbiotic dependence and
failure to gain independence and autonomy.

Experimental Studies of Gender-

and Body-Identity Disorders
Corporeality itself may become one’s preferential and highly biased
interest, one’s core of self-attitude, far exceeding interest in other aspects
of the self and in other people; such an interest is typical for patients with
narcissistic personality disorder. The inner inconsistency of body repre-
sentations (a consequence of the splitting of sensory and symbolic levels
of self-consciousness along with situational thinking) causes polarity in
the emotional attitude to one’s bodily life, which extends from haughty
exhibitionism and perfectionism to a kind of bodily masochism, extrem-
ism, and “auto-terrorism.” This attitude leads to exaggeration, almost
caricature, with the help of which those with a narcissistic personality try
to achieve and maintain the attributes of an ideal body but fail and then
sadistically punish themselves. The specificity of narcissistic self-identity
as a whole, with its splitting, fragmentariness, predominance of unrealis-
tic idolization / devaluation, and impulsive acting out, is reflected in the
perception of one’s physical and gendered self.
A hypothesis of how two parameters of cognitive style (dependence /
autonomy and degree of cognitive differentiation) influence the structure
and the character of gender-identity functioning was tested by Sokolova,
Burlakova, and Leontiu (2001, 2002). According to the results, the bal-
ance of dependence / autonomy and degree of differentiation determines
whether differentiation / integrity of situational self-images and patterns
of self-other relationships develop into a coherent and intrinsically con-
sistent gender identity. These data agree with the results of previous stud-
ies that confirmed the correlation of low cognitive differentiation and
field dependence with a relatively persistent symptom complex-defective
structures of self-consciousness, instability of physical self-image as in-
fluenced by changing states of frustration / satisfaction, a low level of
cognitive equipment for defense operations, and, therefore, high stress
accessibility and high permeability of self-boundaries in patients with
food addictions and promiscuous behavior (Sokolova, 1989; Sokolova
& Iljina, 2000).
 Affective-Cognitive Differentiation and Integrity as a Dispositional Factor… 193

Nowadays, with the accelerated growth of the market for services

and products that allow modeling and transforming one’s appearance
at will, when the body becomes a commodity to sell and the expecta-
tion is that the value of the body can and should be heightened in ev-
ery possible way, aesthetic surgery is used along with other innovative
technologies to satisfy needs that “saturate” public self-image. And this
is not a question of striving for self-development; on the contrary, it is
an obsessive, irrational desire to get rid of one’s own (live, authentic,
but not faultless) self and to miraculously receive another bodily self
instead – one devoid of any shortcomings and weaknesses, but fictional
and unrealistic.
This situation provokes a radical transformation of self-conscious-
ness and ethics for the human race as a whole – for example, when the
body becomes an object that can easily be refashioned or even changed.
Body and gender forfeit their status as basic identification and turn into
just one of many possible identifications of the self; they start to depend
on social and cultural factors–status, financial freedom, fashion. All
these possibilities can cause deformation and loss of selfhood, making
one not only highly sensitive but recklessly “omnivorous” and creating
various forms of “cultural pathology.” Among them is narcissistic per-
fectionism with its claims to boundlessness, omnipotence, and superior-
ity; disdain of nature with its genuine limitations; belief in the absolute
powers of technology; and fetishization of idealistic social, professional,
and cultural standards. People with hypochondria, who often seek med-
ical help, have overdependent personality patterns, are suggestible, lack
clear internal reference points, and are susceptible to social conform-
ism. They automatically and uncritically “acquire” values, propagated
by the media and sociocultural stereotypes, that regard any signs of age-
ing and imperfection as unacceptable. They turn to “salutary” surgical
intervention as if it were able to deliver them from life’s problems. They
naively believe that after their transformation, with their new looks,
they will not encounter cheating, parting, and other disappointments in
their lives. They achieve “resolution” of inner conflicts largely through
external visible changes because they are childishly “materialist.” As a
result, their symbolic processing of intrapsychic conflicts is hindered or
blocked. Nothing can satisfy or console them except an immediate and
desired change in particular “unbearable” circumstances. If they cannot
manage to “make” the situation or other people conform to their wishes,
194 Elena T. Sokolova

then the situation is ruined for them; and so an impulsive act becomes
the most acceptable way out of an unbearable life crisis – for example, an
aesthetic operation can create a narcissistic illusion of an instant glori-
ous future.

Microstructure of Self-Other Representations

in Suicidal and Other Self-Destructive Behavior
Let’s examine the specific organization of the representational space
of a Narcissus, his affects and cognitive structures, his system of concepts
of self and interpersonal relationships (Akhtar, 1984; Kernberg, 2000).
According to our research, the poor cognitive differentiation of his rep-
resentational system, with its inner incongruence and inconsistency and
its lack of coherence and integrity, combined with polar affects, is marked
by the corresponding parameters of affective-cognitive style. Because of
his lack of ability for rational and reflexive self-estimation regardless of
actual affective states and frustrations, his self-conception is unstable and
exposed to constant fluctuations and distortions. These “swings,” typical
of borderline and narcissistic personality organization, are swung by his
emotional instability and oversensitive self-esteem, by the “grandiosity
of the self,” along with his inability to conceptualize and symbolize and
his predominantly psychosomatic mode of regulation and elimination of
psychological traumas (the syndrome of alexithymia).
It is assumed that a consistent, coherent, and noncontradictory rep-
resentational worldview can develop in childhood and then function sta-
bly to defend one from ups and downs; having such a worldview is possi-
ble only because of the responsive attitude of a caring adult–that is, only
inside a “container” of secure attachments (Bateman & Fonagy, 2004).
Thus, early child-adult relationships serve as a “field” that provides suf-
ficient space for mutual attachment and autonomy (or, on the contrary,
provides a “toxic” environment); in this field all the psychic functions
are formed, including regulatory systems, cognitive abilities, and lan-
guage and symbolic means for processing “unbearable” affective states.
The “working models of relationships” or the “representational models
of object relationships” (terms vary depending on the corresponding
theory) acquired in childhood are responsible for the unconscious dis-
positional ability for specific organization of actual interactions and in-
fluence the affective valence (“coloring”) of perception, kind or hostile. If
 Affective-Cognitive Differentiation and Integrity as a Dispositional Factor… 195

we put aside the terminological differences, we can easily recognize here

some traditional issues of psychological science: the social determinants
of development, the role of communication and a child’s social inclusion
in the culture of human relationships, socialization and its psychologi-
cal mechanisms as well as the influence of past experience and the indi-
vidual acquisition of a system of cultural standards that provide a person
with a “frame” for building current relationships and making decisions
to act in certain ways.
This context guides us in our research on the psychological regu-
larities that determine the disintegration of development, the formation
and the functioning of the cognitive structures, and the generalized and
schematized concepts of interpersonal (self-other) relationships, which
function as a systemically organized adjustment mechanism of social
perception. Personality style as a persistent individual pattern consists of
three blocks: (1) interactive substructures of perceptive predispositions
and schemes that select, predict, and control social activity; (2) defenses
and coping mechanisms for affective regulation; and (3) configurations
of attitudes toward self and significant others. The integration and inter-
relation of these substructures determine one’s reliance on the settled
system of standards in new, difficult, uncertain, or critical situations. If
one has lost an ability to wonder or experience emotional inspiration,
can’t find meaning in these life circumstances, and perceives them exclu-
sively as an anxiety factor, as ambiguity that exceeds the ability to cope
with it and threatens a settled and coherent worldview and the continu-
ity of self-identity, then it is most likely that the “answer” to environ-
mental or internal conflict will be expressed in some previously formed
(and probably outdated) stereotype of mental response. And yet it is the
unconventional situations – especially those in which one discovers the
meaning and the finitude of life, the correctness or incorrectness of a
chosen path, the commitment of family and friends, the value of one’s
personality – that give one a choice. They can release the creative poten-
tial of the self as well as cause such a powerful “inner earthquake” that
violence or suicide may seem the only way out.
We believe that the individual stylistics of a representational system
have a major impact on the actual type of communication, determining
(and sometimes distorting) social perception and self-image. They also
determine the mechanisms for processing frustrations in interpersonal
relationships, including loss of a significant other and failures that chal-
196 Elena T. Sokolova

lenge the stability of self-respect. Moreover, the structural and concep-

tual characteristics of representations of relationships are interconnected
and determined by the affective-cognitive style of the personality, which
is understood as an individual configuration of affective and cognitive
processes, including modes of perception with a varying degree of emo-
tional charge and intra/interpsychic regulatory mechanisms of affective
states with a varying degree of psychological differentiation / integrity
and of field dependence / autonomy. Thus, there exists an affective-
cognitive representational style of self-other relationships – that is, an
individual system of concepts of human relationships, their categoriza-
tion and regulation, with a varying degree of cognitive differentiation,
complexity, symbolical mediation, and emotional charge.
This theoretical perspective allows us to view such representations
not only as an echo of our past experience of emotional relationships
but also as a working model for constructing new experiences of com-
munication, which regulate interiorization, assign algorithms for pro-
cessing traumatic states in the present and in the future, and eventually
determine the degree of tolerance for frustrations in interpersonal re-
lationships. Such modes of affective-cognitive representation of inter-
personal interactions are activated in situations of ambiguity and, most
important, in break-ups with, separations from, or losses of significant
others, and they determine the generalized way of processing the trau-
matic emotional experience of loss. Thus, tolerance for the emotional
experience of loss is assigned by the individual configuration, the in-
dividual stylistics, of the whole complex of feelings, fantasies, affects,
and self-other representations along with the repertoire of means of ra-
tional-reflexive and conceptual processing of this experience, defenses,
and coping mechanisms (Sokolova & Korshunova, 2007; Sokolova &
Sotnikova, 2006b).

The Affective-Cognitive Style as a Predictor

of Borderline and Narcissistic Disorders
and Behavioral Deviations
Cognitive field dependence represents excessively concrete thinking,
which narrows possibilities beyond the limits of the obvious, the empiri-
cal, and the immediate, particularly via reflexive thinking, reconstruc-
tive imagination, and dreaming. It hinders anticipation of the future,
 Affective-Cognitive Differentiation and Integrity as a Dispositional Factor… 197

metaphorical reconstruction of the missing and the lost, and thus sig-
nificantly reduces personal regenerative resources and maintains a state
of chronic “emotional hunger,” of constant discontent. Low differentia-
tion (“cognitive simplicity,” lack of means for analysis and sorting) shows
itself in the inability to see subtle differences and changes, to distinguish
the essential from the peripheral (especially in the sphere of social rela-
tionships and self-perception), and in the “globality” and “dichotomy” of
judgments and ideas – in general, the antidialectics of perception.
The excessively high (and, as has been shown, “false”) cognitive dif-
ferentiation of perception is characterized by the excessive specification,
“fractionality,” mutual incongruence, and fragmentariness of self-other
representations; the analytical processes lack impartial reflexivity, con-
sistency, and self-control. But the main defect here is the lack of theo-
retical synthesis. A relatively high level of cognitive functioning coex-
ists with but is unconnected to intense but poorly verbalized affects; the
self-other image is split between devalued and estranged “bad” bodily
aspects and idealized, grandiose “good” spiritual aspects. The general
configuration of defenses is dominated by the mechanisms of splitting,
devaluation, and hypersymbolization with a prevalence of excessively
abstract symbols of superiority, uniqueness, and grandiosity, which con-
tribute to rejection and the destruction of relationships with others. The
suicidal (and, wider, the parasuicidal, i.e., self-destructive) behavior in
these patients is activated in response to narcissistic offences, “collapses”
of perfectionist expectations and self-esteem, which are subjectively per-
ceived as a catastrophe, a global, personal failure.
In such a state one loses not only the ability to experience pleasure,
to enjoy life, but also the ability to play, to invent, to see the familiar
in a new light; one forfeits coherence and consistency of thinking. The
analogy with a baby’s indifference and delay in cognitive development
in response to the prolonged deprivation of maternal love and attention
is quite appropriate here (Bowlby, 1973). The absence of the object in
reality, uncompensated for by its symbolically supporting representation
in the inner world, leads to the irrevocable loss of emotional and so-
cial “bonds,” cognitive deficit, and loss of the coherence and integrity of
mental representations. The worlds inside and outside the self appear in
primeval chaos and total ambiguity, out of spatial and temporal dimen-
sions, without any possibility of being expressed in words or of gaining
structure and order, a situation that cannot but fill one with confusion
198 Elena T. Sokolova

and overall helplessness. The defense system is forced to function in a

simplified mode, to return to a primitive level of cognitive mediation
(cognitive simplicity), and sometimes the ability to think and express
feelings in words is totally lost. The predominance of splitting over in-
tegrity leads to this condition when a traumatic emotional experience,
be it a loss of the other or a narcissistic wound, chronically destabilizes
the ability to feel and to reflexively process critical states and hinders the
preservation of stable personal identity and the maintenance of relation-
ships with significant others (Sokolova & Korshunova, 2007; Sokolova &
Sotnikova, 2006a).

Affective-Cognitive Style and the Prediction

of Psychotherapeutic Effectiveness
People with borderline and narcissistic personality organization be-
long to the group of “difficult” patients, those resistant to any type of
medication and psychological help because of their unrealistically maxi-
malist demands and expectations of immediate, magical healing. But
help in finding individual zones of difficulty as well as zones of proxi-
mal development – the perspectives of psychotherapy – comes from a
differentiated approach based on consideration of subtle individual dif-
ferences and personal stylistics. Thus, patients with low cognitive dif-
ferentiation and high field dependence show high compliance, but this
compliance is accompanied by intellectual passivity, difficulties in ana-
lyzing and reframing, and their typical literalness. These characteristics
limit their ability to feel relief and at least partial satisfaction from words
and mental transformations rather than from real acts or “things.” In a
sense, such patients are too “materialist.” They are yearning for visual,
concrete, and “real” changes in life; relativities and “artificialities” do not
console them, but a therapist cannot “give” them more.
Overautonomous and overdifferentiated patients pose for a therapist
another type of challenge. In psychotherapy they are prone to demon-
strate various and ingenious forms of resistance; they sabotage coopera-
tive relationships, break therapeutic contracts, block placebo effects. Be-
cause of their panic and fear of “absorption” by a “powerful” therapist,
such patients are inclined to suddenly reject and interrupt treatment
under the slightest threat that their lack of self-sufficiency may be “un-
masked.”
 Affective-Cognitive Differentiation and Integrity as a Dispositional Factor… 199

As we can see, both types of patients suffer from a failure of “con-

tainment” (Bion, 1962) and from difficulties in accepting and “interior-
izing” as provided by therapist emotional support and cognitive means
for processing and integrating traumatic experience. But, although they
are complex and systemic, the psychological mechanisms that cause the
risk that psychotherapy will have low effectiveness are different. Field-
dependent patients “fail” because of their inability to generalize and
cognitively integrate experience, their excessive need to rely on external
sources of influence (the therapist), and their lack of inner resources. On
the contrary, overautonomous patients show understanding and seem
to be capable of cognitive integration, but, because of their rejection of
emotional bonds and cooperative relationships through their basic mis-
trust for the other, they are unable to “accept,” withhold, and maintain
achieved positive changes. Obviously, the prognosis is more favorable
when traumatic feelings are available for sharing with the therapist as a
significant other and when therapeutic relationships reconstruct some
lost emotional bonds, develop processes of symbolization, imagination,
signification, and expressive verbalization; as a result, “unspeakable”
traumatic states are “contained” cognitively and emotionally. “Words,”
notes MacDougall, “are invaluable containers” (2007, p. 86). Psycho-
therapeutic “containment” serves integration and the acquisition of non-
contradictory unification of emotional attitude and mental representa-
tion, of “gathering oneself ” into a coherent, meaningful, and consistent
self-identity based on human bonds and maintained despite the vicis-
situdes of life experience. Unfortunately, cognitive or (and) emotional
deficit may become a provocative psychological mechanism of general-
ized resistance to treatment (Blatt, 1990, Blatt & Lerner, 1983; Sokolova,
2002, 2009). The problem is that the transitory space of “play,” “dream,”
and relativity that is created in therapy by compassionate words is hardly
shared by such patients. In a certain sense, they are too materialist and
nonidealist; they crave visible and “real” changes in life, and the relativity
and “artificiality” of substitutions do not console them.

Conclusion and Perspectives on Research

In seems that the impossibility of formulating a unified theoretical
and exploratory paradigm is caused by the essentially partial character
of most studies, which focus on particular traits of personal style outside
200 Elena T. Sokolova

their systemic interrelations. There is also a considerable gap between

the epistemologies of the humanities and the natural sciences, which
significantly narrows the possibilities for interpreting data acquired
through different scientific approaches and methods-differences that are
sometimes mutually unacknowledged.
Our meta-analysis as well as many years of research on the systemic
mechanisms of destabilization of self-identity allow us to claim that the
affective-cognitive style is one of the socio-cognitive mechanisms of
functional and structural distortion of self-identity and is a predictor of
risk for the development of borderline and narcissistic personality dis-
orders along with the comorbid diseases – chronic neuroses, affective
pathology, hypochondria, food addiction, suicide – and other types of
self-destructive behavior in people with high victimhood because of in-
sufficiently defined and blurred borders of the self that are consequently
accessible to intrusion and violation.

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