Trastornos de Personalidad en Hombres Maltratadores a la Pareja: Perfil Diferencial entre Agresores en Prisión y Agresores con Suspensión de Condena

Abstract

In this paper a study of personality disorders most frequently related to 217 male batterers is carried out. All of them form part of a specialized psychological treatment programme for gender violence, which is developed by PSIMAE Institute of Forensic and Legal Psychology, belonging to the Social Service of Justice, Government of Navarra (Spain). All the participants were assessed with the MCMI-II before beginning the treatment programme. Furthermore, a comparison of all the personality variables studied among the subjects referred by the court to the treatment programme (137 males with a suspended sentence) and those who were imprisoned (n=80) was conducted. According to the results, 79.3% of the sample showed at least one personality disorder. The most prevalent one was the obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (61.3% of cases), followed by the paranoid personality disorder (30%) and the dependent personality disorder (28.1% of cases). Moreover, the results showed the existence of numerous statistically significant differences between groups. In general, imprisoned batterers showed a higher severity in personality variables than those who were referred by the court to the treatment programme. Implications of these results for further research and clinical practice are also commented.