Rolling in the Deep of Personality: a Network Analysis of the Revised Structured Interview for Personality Organization (STIPO-R) in Clinical and Non-Clinical Italian Samples.

The concept of personality organization, proposed by Kernberg and colleagues, has extensively contributed to the understanding and treatment of personality disorders, facilitating a paradigm shift in clinical practice. The Structured Interview for Personality Organization (STIPO-R) is a semi-structured interview designed for the dimensional assessment of personality organization as elaborated by Kernberg. In the present contribution, we tested the applicability and psychometric properties of the revised version of the Structured Interview for Personality Organization (STIPO-R) in the Italian population. In the first study, the STIPO-R was administered to 350 Italian participants, divided into 170 nonclinical participants and 180 clinical individuals. The theoretical dimensionality of the STIPO-R and the internal consistency of each scale were tested through Confirmatory Factor Analysis. Convergent validity was established using both criterion measures of maladaptive personality (Inventory of Personality Organization, IPO; Personality Inventory for DSM-5, PID-5) and general psychopathology (Symptom Checklist 90-R, SCL-90-R; Pathological Narcissism Inventory, PNI). Subsequently, a network analysis was conducted on the STIPO-R domains and subdomains to elucidate the interrelationships among personality organization components and investigate differences in their underlying structure in the community versus clinical sample. In a second study, we tested how STIPO-R performed in evaluating the personality structure in three different samples: 60 participants from the community, 45 outpatients with SUDs, and 42 inpatients with DD of SUDs and co-occurring PD. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that SUD and DD patients shared poorly integrated identity and object relations, rigid and primitive defenses, poorly integrated moral values, and higher self-directed aggression levels compared to individuals from the community sample. Moreover, DD patients were characterized by a more impaired sense of self, overall maladaptive defenses, higher levels of other-directed aggression, and narcissism. Findings contribute to providing a standardized and culturally sensitive tool for personality assessment in Italy, adequately capturing pathological dimensions of personality across different samples.