The expression of affective themes in the ORT during a psychological consultation

Philippson Object Relation Technique (ORT, Phillipson, 1955) is a projective method aimed to evaluate the types and levels of object relations in adolescents and adults. In the last years our research group has devised a new evaluation form for this technique (Lis, Zennaro, Giovannini, Mazzeschi, Calvo, 2002). The ORT is now part of our assessment methods in planning psychotherapeutic treatments of adolescents and adults. This form includes different personality cluster: among them richness versus poverty of affections. The affective themes were firstly devised by S. Russ in the Affective in Play Scale (Russ, 1993) a scale to evaluate children's symbolic play. These themes were lately used by our team in the evaluation of a thematic method: Philippson Object Relation Technique. The affective themes identify 12 categories of affective themes that range from aggression, frustration, to happiness and care. The aim of this paper is to: a) assess the trend of these thematic themes in patients referred to our University consultation centre for students (SAP, Centro di Assistenza Psicologica per Studenti); b) connect this trends with the planning of the treatment, using the categories proposed by Bihlar and Carlsson (2000).