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Connections between attachment styles and relationship patterns are studied on 32 female psychotherapy patients. Our study gives first hints to a connection between attachment variables, assessed by the German version of the Adult Attachment Prototype Rating (AAPR) and predominant relationship patterns, assessed by the Core Conflictual Relationship Theme Method (CCRT) developed by Luborsky, if both methods are used independently. Subsamples according to the attachment styles show differences in CCRT variables.

This study, carried out at three different university centers contributes to validating the valence dimension of the CCRT-method. Working on the state of the CCRT-research on affective evaluation of relationship narratives, the connection between the valence dimension of the responses from others (RO), responses of the self (RS) and the severity of the psychic disorder has been analysed with the help of two different samples (n = 266 resp. n = 32) taken from female patients. Both, therapists as well as patients themselves, evaluated the severity of the impairment similarly. The more the patients were impaired, the more negatively they describes both their own reactions and those of their interaction partners as shown in the relationship episodes.