Assessing personality disorder through storymaking : a reliability and validity study of the 6-part story method

Dent-Brown, Kim

Abstract

The 6-Part Story Method (6PSM) involves the participant creating and telling a fictional story which is then discussed with the interviewer. Stories were recorded from NHS mental health clinicians, and from adult mental health patients with and without a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Statements describing the stories could be reliably scored by raters who were blind to the authorship of the stories. It was possible to use these statements to assemble a scale with good internal consistency, inter-rater reliability and test- retest reliability over a one-month period. The scale statements all related to the degree of negativity and failure expressed in the story. Ratings on this negativity scale given to stories from patients with a cluster B personality disorder diagnosis were significantly higher than the ratings given to stories from other participants.

The text of the story transcriptions was analysed using computerised text analysis programs, which detected some patterns of language use that appeared to distinguish reliably between stories from participants with BPD and other stories.

Participants were asked for their reactions to the 6PSM process, and their responses analysed using a Grounded Theory approach. This suggested that for most participants, the 6PSM works through increasingly close emotional identification with an initially distant and metaphorical main character.

Citation

Dent-Brown, K. (2004). Assessing personality disorder through storymaking : a reliability and validity study of the 6-part story method. (Thesis). University of Hull. Retrieved from https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/4223817

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Jan 14, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 24, 2023
• Keywords: Medicine
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/4223817
• Additional Information: Postgraduate Medical Institute, The University of Hull
• Award Date: Apr 1, 2004