Variables pertaining to the person of the psychotherapist have been neglected in psychotherapy research for some time. Concerning personality in particular, however, research has mostly focused on its relation with the psychotherapist’s choice of method, or differences between the various major therapy approaches. That is, psychotherapists were compared to each other without specifying how exactly psychotherapists are in comparison to “ordinary people.” We wanted to know: Are there specific personality styles that distinguish psychotherapists from the norm? A sample of 1,027 psychotherapists from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland filled out the short version of the Personality Style and Disorder Inventory (PSDI-S) via online survey. The PSDI-S is a self-report questionnaire that assesses 14 personality styles, partly related to the non-pathological equivalents of classifiable personality disorders. The psychotherapists were compared to a normative sample of 3,392 people of different professions. The results could be divided into three groups: (1) Large differences in four personality styles that might contribute to relationship skills and may enable psychotherapists to put their own personal opinion aside, show empathy and appreciation, open themselves to the emotional experience of the patient, and provide a trusting relationship. (2) Moderate differences in seven personality styles that are equally indicative of the professional social skills of the psychotherapists, i.e., they were neither submissive nor passive, not excessively helpful, but also not too self-assertive. (3) Hardly any or no differences regarding a charming (histrionic) style, optimism, and conscientiousness. Gender-specific results revealed that male psychotherapists differed from their female colleagues, but they did so differently than men and women in the normative sample do. The main limitations were that we relied on self-report and did not statistically control for gender, age, and education, when comparing to the norm. As a conclusion, German-speaking psychotherapists show personality styles that we interpret as functional for psychotherapeutic practice but this needs corroboration from studies that use different methods and measures.

This is a contribution to the research on the therapist variable aiming to improve effectiveness of psychotherapy. It is shown that attachment styles shape personality styles of psychotherapists in a favorable or unfavorable manner. Data on personality (PSDI) and attachment (RSQ) styles was collected from 430 psychological psychotherapists of the DACH countries using an online survey. The 88 insecurely attached psychotherapists differed significantly from their 342 securely attached colleagues in 9 of 14 personality styles: They were -even though well within normal range -more paranoid, borderline, schizoid, dependent, negativistic, selfsacrificing, avoidant, and depressive, as well as less optimistic. This corresponds to results of other researchers. Data regarding their effectiveness was not available. It is argued that a secure attachment style predispose to be a good psychotherapist. Yet, insecurely attached psychotherapists possibly compensate their adverse traits through self-therapy, continuous education, and supervision.

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Ninety-two high school and 8 secondary school students, aged between 15 and 19 years, were tested for intelligence and for hypnotic susceptibility. No correlations could be observed for the overall sample unselected by sex because the negative correlations for male participants canceled out the positive correlations for the female subsample. These are significant for the total value of intelligence (r = .288) and highly significant for the subcategory verbal intelligence (r = .348), yet nonsignificant for the subcategories numerical intelligence and figural intelligence. Females seem to be more able to imaginatively process semantic contents induced verbally. They also seem to have a higher task motivation than males--at least during adolescence.

This article is an exploratory study investigating the relationship between hypnotizability, personality style, and attachment. Data were collected from 99 students by means of the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility, Form A; Personality Styles and Disorders Inventory; and Relationship Scale Questionnaire. Results suggest that individual personality styles accounted for a significant amount of variance in hypnotizability in: (a) the whole sample, (b) the securely attached, and (c) the insecurely attached. High hypnotizables among both the whole sample and securely attached individuals shared the unselfish/self-sacrificing personality style as a main predictor of hypnotizability and displayed elevated scores for the charming/histrionic and the optimistic/rhapsodic personality style. Furthermore, two groups were identified among the high hypnotizables that differed mainly according to attachment style: one consists of securely attached, charming/histrionic, and optimistic/rhapsodic people, who are best described by socio-cognitive theories. The other is composed of insecurely attached intuitive/schizotypal people, who are better depicted by dissociation theories.

In order to investigate the effects of the hypnotic state a standardized hypnosis session was conducted with 144 subjects in a controlled laboratory study. The induction of a hypnotic trance in the German version of the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility (HGSHS:A by Shor and Orne, 1962) was tape-recorded and used as the treatment. The HGSHS:A seems to be a reliable measure of suggestibility and hypnotizability. This is underlined by the consistent results of a factor analysis on the depths of hypnosis that is in agreement with former studies. Descriptive data analyses with a sufficient number of subjects of high and low suggestibility suggest that our hypnosis induction by tape is an effective method of producing a hypnotic trance. Analyses of within-subjects variables did not reveal any valid predictors of hypnotizability, thereby confirming the need of screening instruments such as the HGSHS.

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