Word use of outpatients with a personality disorder and concurrent or previous major depressive disorder
Abstract
In a recent study, Rude, Gortner, and Pennebaker (2004) found word use to be related to depression and vulnerability to depression in the essays of college students. We sought to replicate and extend these findings in a clinical sample. Written essays of 304 psychiatric outpatients with a personality disorder and a mixed psychiatric profile on DSM-IV axis-I and 108 healthy controls were examined with word count software. Data on the tendency to be discrepant about the current self compared to a more ideal self were also gathered. We found that psychiatric outpatients in general used more words referring to the self and negative emotion words and fewer positive emotion words, compared to healthy controls. However, word-use proved unrelated to depression specifically. Actual-ideal self discrepancies were related to patient status and to current depression. Contrary to our hypothesis, these discrepancies did not correlate with the use of words referring to the self. We conclude that the negative content and self-focus of written essays and high levels of discrepancy reflect a negative thinking style that is common to a range of psychiatric disorders rather than being specific to depression.
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Counting words belonging to semantic and syntactic categories is simple yet effective, as demonstrated in countless experiments across several fields.
“Counting words belonging to semantic and syntactic categories is simple yet effective, as demonstrated in countless experiments across several fields [14,20,22,24,43,44].”
From Behavioral Activation and Depression Symptomatology: Longitudinal Assessment of Linguistic Indicators in Text-Based Therapy Sessions (2021) · cites this paper as [44]
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- Authors
- Molendijk, M. L., Bamelis, L., van Emmerik, A. A. P., Arntz, A., Haringsma, R., & Spinhoven, P.
- Affiliations
- Leiden University (NL)
- Maastricht University (NL)
- Corresponding author
- Molendijk, Marc L.
- Venue
- Behaviour Research and Therapy
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2010-01
- Volume
- 48
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 44-51
- ISSN
- 0005-7967 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2159923678
- Cited by
- 45
- References
- 35
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 1 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 1 · 2014: 2 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 1.30
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Behaviour Research and Therapy (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Research Publications (Maastricht University) (publishedVersion)
- UvA-DARE (University of Amsterdam) (publishedVersion)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion)
- Leiden Repository (Leiden University) (submittedVersion)
- UvA-DARE (University of Amsterdam) (submittedVersion)
- Research Publications (Maastricht University) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Mental Health via Writing
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Disorders and Psychopathology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Keywords
- personality disorders, major depressive disorder, word usage, written essays, self-referential language, negative emotion words, positive emotion words, psychiatric outpatients
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Major Depressive Disorder, Female, Humans, Interview, Psychological, Male, Models, Psychological, Personality Disorders, Psychiatric Status Rating Scales, Psycholinguistics, Surveys and Questionnaires, Self Concept, Software, Time Factors, Vocabulary, Writing, Multivariate Analysis
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