Relational offers and demands: analysing the conflictual interactional components of anaclitic and introjective female depressive patients / Ofertas y demandas relacionales: análisis de los componentes interaccionales conflictivos de pacientes mujeres depresivas anaclíticas e introyectivas

Abstract Depressive symptoms are associated with typical ways of relating to and handling conflict with others. This study empirically analysed the most frequent relational ‘demands’ and ‘offers’ identified in the verbal expressions of depressive patients during the first session, comparing them according to their personality organization (anaclitic vs introjective). The CCRT-LU-S Category System was used to analyse the first session of 27 patients with depressive symptomatology. The results showed that the highest percentage of depressive patients’ interactional components identified were relational ‘offers’, whereas the remainder percentage were relational ‘demands’. At the same time, the highest percentage of those interactional components were verbalized as disharmonious (weakness, withdrawing, unpleasant and fighting) by anaclitic patients, while the highest percentage were verbalized as harmonious (loving or having self-determination) by introjective patients. Implications for clinical relevance of these results are discussed.