A Group Comparison of Alcoholic and Non-Alcoholic Marriages using the Interpersonal Perception Technique

¹ Director of Psychological Research, Crichton Royal, Dumfries, Scotland
² Consultant Psychiatrist, Bangour Village Hospital, Broxburn, West Lothian, Scotland

The Interpersonal Perception Technique has been applied to two groups of married couples; one a group of 22 male alcoholic patients and their wives, and the other a non-psychiatric sample of 26 married couples similar to the patients in occupational status and social class. The results indicate that the patients are not markedly inferior to the controls on the measures of mutual marital insight which the technique makes available.

The most striking difference between the groups relates to the wives' description of their husbands. The control wives describe their husbands in a way which accords well with the husband's self-description, while the wives of the patients do not. We tested the hypothesis that this was partly determined by the presence in the control couples of a concept of male personality—a socio-sexual stereotype of masculinity—which they share, and that this stereotype is not present in the marriages of the patients and their wives. These hypotheses were fully confirmed.

The interpersonal relationship between the alcoholic and his wife is characterized by clear evidence of socio-sexual role confusion and by conflicting dependence-independence needs. The weight of the evidence favours the interpretation that it is the patient's neurotic difficulties rather than any pathology in his wife which has determined this interpersonal dilemma. This last generalization is discussed and will be the focus of a further study.

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