GUILT, TRANSFERENCE AND PERSONALITY: AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION

If, on one hand, personality is a predictor of the transference (Bradley, 2005; Colli, 2016; Tanzilli,2017), according to the Control-Mastery Theory (CMT; Weiss, 1993; Silberschatz, 2005; Gazzillo,2016) this relationship is influenced, and mediated, among other factors, by interpersonal guilt(Bush, 2005). Following this theory, guilt is an interpersonal and prosocial emotion that becomedysfunctional when alimented by pathogenic beliefs (i.e. beliefs that associate a healthy andpleasurable goal with a danger or the worry to hurt a significative one). The aim of this study is toempirically investigate the relationship between interpersonal guilt, transference and personality.The tools used are: the Interpersonal Guilt Rating Scale-15 (Gazzillo et al., 2017) to assessinterpersonal guilt; the Personality Relationship Questionnaire (Bradley, 2005; Tanzilli, 2017) toassess transference dimensions; and the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Prototypes (Gazzillo et al.,2010) to assess personality disorders/styles. Preliminary analyses showed significant relationshipsbetween different kinds of interpersonal guilt, transference dimensions and personalities styles. Weinvestigated the relationship between transference and interpersonal guilt with the GeneralizedEstimated Equations and found positive and significative relationships between these constructs.Then, we repeated the model to see the relationship between these variables and personality. Forexample, the dependent personality disorder seems to be related to positive/working alliance,anxious/preoccupied and sexualized transference dimensions. It is also related to separation guilt,that is in turn related to anxious/preoccupied and sexualized transference dimensions. These resultssupport the hypothesis that guilt and transference are connected and may be both consideredexpressions of personality. Future research will investigate the mediational role of guilt in thetransference-personality relationship.