Depressive Personality Styles and Interpersonal Problems in Young Adults with Difficulties in Establishing Long-Term Romantic Relationships Hadas Wiseman, PhD, Alon Raz, PhD, and Ruth Sharabany, PhD University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel. Abstract: This research examined Blatt’s personality styles in relation to overall interpersonal distress and problems in affiliation and dominance of young adults with difficulties in establishing long-term romantic relationships. Partici- pants were 141 (73 males and 68 females) young adults comprising two groups: with difficulties in establishing long- term romantic relationships and without such difficulties. They completed the Depressive Experiences Questionnaire and the Mental Health Index (MHI), and they and their friend completed the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems (IIP-C). Self-criticism and dependency contributed to greater self-reported interpersonal distress, over and above MHI depression and anxiety, while efficacy moderated the effects of these vulnerabilities. Self-criticism contributed to the friend’s report of interpersonal distress only for those without difficulties in long-term romantic relationships. The findings are discussed in terms of Blatt’s theory on interpersonal relatedness and self-definition in young adult’s per- sonality development and the complementary ways the personality styles influence the interpersonal world. Difficulties in establishing satisfying long-term ro- mantic relationships are considered to be a major concern for many young adults, and play a consider- able role in driving young adults to seek psychother- apy (1, 2). Those young adults who fail to form and maintain lasting and satisfying romantic relation- ships experience psychological pressures that appear to stem from the social expectations that are directed towards them as their age increases, from their anomalous status relative to peers their age, and from negative stereotypes directed towards them (3, 4). Although difficulties in establishing long-term romantic relationships are highly relevant to many young adults and are a potential source of significant psychological pain and stress, this issue has, so far, been largely neglected. The present study focuses on young adults with these difficulties by applying the framework of Blatt’s (5, 6) model of personality to examine their interpersonal distress. Difficulties in Establishing Long-Term Romantic Relationships A literature search of studies on young adults experi- encing difficulties in establishing long-term roman- tic relationships revealed that research in this area is scarce (7–9). At least three reasons for this gap are suggested: first, perception of romantic relationships during the period before marriage as a transition pe- riod that is assumed to lead in most cases to marriage at one point or another, so that these young men and women will overcome such difficulties eventually (10); second, there is a related area of research that deals with different aspects of the quality of couple relationships of those who define themselves as cur- rently in a couple relationship. In this literature, the length of the relationship can range from a few weeks to many years, with the researchers distinguishing between marital relationships and pre-marital rela- tionships that have been less studied (8); and third, the range of the definitions of those experiencing “difficulties in forming long-term romantic relation- ships” (we will refer to them in short as “DLR”) is broad. They range from those who have a complete lack of any couple relationships, to those who have relatively short-term relationships from a few weeks to a few months, and those who have relationships ranging for a year or two that do not lead to mar- riage. Given this diversity in definitions, the lack of consistency in criteria for specifying this group of Isr J Psychiatry Relat Sci Vol 44 No. 4 (2007) 280–291 Address for Correspondence: Hadas Wiseman, Faculty of Education, University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, Israel. E-mail: hadasw@construct.haifa.ac.il