Personality functioning in the domains of the self and social relationships and profiles of functional ego states
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Objective: In current classifications of mental and behavioural disorders, i.e. ICD-11 (2022) and DSM-5-TR (2024), the dimensional approach prevails over the categorical one, especially with regard to personality disorders. The multidimensional approach poses new challenges for clinicians and psychotherapists in terms of both descriptive diagnosis and the structural-functional-dynamic personality. A question arises: whether personality theories, which form the basis of various psychotherapy modalities, including the assumptions of transactional analysis, provide a sufficient basis for a dimensional description of the functioning of the self and interpersonal functioning of a person. The objective of the research project was to attempt to answer the question of whether individuals with personality disorders differ from those without personality disorders in terms of their behavioural, social and communicative functioning profiles, i.e. their egogram of functional ego states. We assumed that differences between the profiles of positively and negatively used functional ego states could form the basis for diagnosing the level of personality functioning with regard to self and interpersonal relationships.
Methods and subjects: the level of personality functioning was examined using the Self and Interpersonal Functioning Scale (SIFS; Soroko et al., 2025), whereas the ego states were examined using the Ego States Questionnaire (Matkowski et al., 2016). The study group consisted of 106 people aged 18-65.
Results: The results indicate that individuals with personality disorders differ significantly from those with normal personalities in terms of the intensity of both positive and negative ego states. Participants with personality disorders operate out of the negatively used states of the Rebellious Child and Compliant Child more often than individuals without personality disorders and reveal less energy invested in the Adult. The description of the level of self and interpersonal functioning using the functional egogram of transactional analysis can provide a reliable basis for diagnostic decisions by clinicians and therapists.
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