Erikson's stages of psychosocial development related to detachment in Cluster A Personality disorders

Personality disorders are associated with ways of thinking and feeling about oneself and others that significantly and adversely affect how an individual functions in many aspects of life (APA, 2013). These kind of disorders can lay the foundation in a specific stage of development, consistent with Erikson's developmental theory. Detachment is one of the main factors in Cluster A Personality Disorders: Paranoid, Schizoid, and Schizotypal Personality Disorders. This study investigated the relationship between Erikson’s psychosocial stages and negative personality traits, and involved 296 participants aged between 18 and 37 years (M= 19; SD= 1,748) of High School and University. They took a set of standardized self report, among which MEPSI (Modified Erikson Psychosocial Stage Inventory), a 80-items self report which evaluate the 8 psychosocial stages of Erikson’s theory, that was first translated in Italian; and Pid-5-bf (Personality Inventory for DSM-5-Brief Form), a 25-items self report based on DSM-5 (APA, 2013) which assess 5 negative personality traits (Negative affect, Detachment, Antagonism, Disinhibition, Psychoticism). Statistical analysis were conducted, Cronbach alpha to evaluate reliability of the instruments and Pearson correlations; the stronger negative correlations were between Detachment (a subscale of Pid-5-bf) and all the subscales of MEPSI, especially with Intimacy-Isolation stage (-,621**). This means that a failure in this specific stage could increase the development of detachment in relationships, that will enhance the chances of a Cluster A personality disorder. This is a pilot study, more researches are needed to investigate deeper these relation.