Despite the popularity of the study of borderline personality disorder, definition of “Chronic Emptiness” were applied to define the theoretical concept and never met an agreement among evaluators.

First, the preliminary questionnaire was prepared based on the previous studies and the data collected through the in-depth interviews with the people with borderline personality disorder, and the final 18 items were developed through the item analysis. In order to verify the reliability and validity of the emptiness scale, 526 adults from 18 to 40 years of age were tested for internal consistency coefficient, and factor analysis and validity test were conducted.

The internal consistency coefficient of the emptiness scale was very good. As a result of the factor analysis, it was confirmed that it has a single structure. On validity test, emptiness was highly correlated with borderline personality disorder, depression, and suicide ideation.

Emptiness is associated with identity problems, and adolescents tend to do NSSI to deal with emptiness related to identity formation. Until now, the terms of loneliness, solitude, and emptiness have not been sufficiently distinguished, but the distinction between the respective terms has become possible through measuring emptiness. The implications and limitations of this research and subsequent studies discussed.

The present study examined whether any unconsidered variable during revision of the K-WAIS would lower reliability of its standardized score.

In this study, a group of participants were assigned to perform modified ‘coding’ tests, respectively. To avoid the norm group issue, all the conditions except the stimuli were set identical across the tests. Analysis focused on finding variables which would contribute to difference among the tests, including their distribution patterns.

The results showed that physical differences of spatial organization across the tests and background such as figure shapes attributed to significant difference between ‘digit symbol’ in K-WAIS and ‘coding’ in K-WAIS-IV.

It suggests possibility of different difficulty level between ‘digit symbol’ in K-WAIS and ‘coding’ in K-WAIS-IV. Analysis of performance distribution also indicates that the test with better performance (K-WAIS coding) may have lower difficulty because its score distribution was more negatively skewed than that of the other.

The purpose of this study is to develop a short form of the normal depression scale for individual use in the school, health, industry, organization, and counseling settings, based on the original normal depression scale (17 items).

To achieve this purpose, we selected five items from the original test and analyzed data using Mplus 7.4 and SPSS 21.0.

The normal depression scale-short form consists of 5 items. The reliability of the short form (test-retest reliability) was good. The content validity and internal structure validity (1 factor model) were verified. The cut score between normal and dysfunctional depression was determined to be 18.

The normal depression scale-short form for individual screening is verified to have good reliability and validity, so it is expected to be useful to perform quick screening of normal depression in the practical settings.

The purpose of this study is to develop the Korean dysfunctional depression submodule scales, which are composed of hwa-byung, mood dysregulation, female depression, anxiety, spouse conflict and suicidal risk.

To achieve this purpose, we developed preliminary items of six submodules through the theoretical approach and experiential approach. Then we collected data from professionals and para-professionals in mental health area (n=407) and 275 data were used to analyzed. Correlation with criterion, item information function, item-total correlation, and explorative factor analysis are performed using Mplus 7.4 and SPSS 21.0.

6 submodules of the Korean dysfunctional depression are composed of 8 items for Hwa-byung, 7 items for mood dysregulation, 7 items for female depression, 7 items for anxiety, 7 items for spouse-conflict and 9 items for suicidal risk. Reliability of submodules are .84∼.93.

These submodules of the Korean dysfunctional depression scale are verified to have high reliability and expected to be useful to assess the specific and various features of the dysfunctional depression.

The purpose of this study is to develop and validate the Korean dysfunctional depression scale, which measures pathological depression including subclinical depression and clinical depression.

To achieve this purpose, we collected data from patients diagnosed as having depressive disorder and clients with chief complaints related to depression, and 360 data were analyzed.

Using item linkage methods, we decided 20 items as a dysfunctional depression scale for group research. The results of reliability verification show high internal consistency and stable test-retest reliability. In addition, the result of factor validity demonstrates general factor and two specific factors-the first specific factor is ‘the physical-somatic factor’ and the second specific factor is ‘the pessimistic cognition and alienation factor’. Convergent validity was also confirmed good. Lastly, this study performed standard setting workshop consisting of content experts to decide cut-scores of dysfunctional depression scale. Through the workshop, the standard cut-score of normal-subclinical depression was decided as 44 and the standard cut-score of subclinical-clinical depression was decided as 58. The classification consistency and accuracy indices were to validate standard cut-scores.

This Korean dysfunctional depression scale is verified to have high reliability and validity.

Hypomanic Personality Scale (HPS) had been adapted into several languages for use in various countries as a tool to measure hypomanic tendencies. It is widely used to investigate bipolar disorder risk among non-clinical samples. Its usefulness has also been suggested in Korea via recent studies.

The HPS was adapted through a back-translation process by two bilinguist and reviewed by three clinical psychologists. To investigate internal consistency, test-retest, and convergent and concurrent validity of the HPS, 230 normal participants completed a self-report battery on-line. Explanatory factor analysis was performed to examine the factor structure of the HPS.

The adapted HPS showed good internal consistency and test-retest correlations. Validation results showed that people who had higher HPS total scores had more extraversion in social relations and openness to new environments and experiences. The HPS scores also had positive correlations with scores of borderline personality trait, impulsive tendencies, sensation seeking, and grandiosity. People with a stronger hypomanic tendency had more hypomania symptoms and depressive symptoms. Exploratory factor analysis supported two factors: (1) ‘social vitality and self-confidence,’ associated with positive characteristics, and (2) ‘hypomanic-like symptoms,’ associated with negative attributes.

The adapted HPS scores were reliable and valid for measuring hypomanic personalities. Hypomanic personality might have two aspects, one related to usefulness for daily life functioning, and the other vulnerable to psychological problems. The implications and limitations of this research and subsequent studies are discussed.