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Childhood Trauma and Emotion Regulation : = The Roles of Alexithymia and Experiential Avoidance in Emerging Adults.

Record Type:	Language materials, manuscript : Monograph/item
Title/Author:	Childhood Trauma and Emotion Regulation :/
Reminder of title:	The Roles of Alexithymia and Experiential Avoidance in Emerging Adults.
Author:	Bonasera, Brittany J.
Description:	1 online resource (123 pages)
Notes:	Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 85-10, Section: B.
Contained By:	Dissertations Abstracts International85-10B.
Subject:	Clinical psychology. -
Online resource:	click for full text (PQDT)
ISBN:	9798382026992

Childhood Trauma and Emotion Regulation : = The Roles of Alexithymia and Experiential Avoidance in Emerging Adults.
Bonasera, Brittany J.

Childhood Trauma and Emotion Regulation :The Roles of Alexithymia and Experiential Avoidance in Emerging Adults. - 1 online resource (123 pages)

Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 85-10, Section: B.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Hofstra University, 2024.

Includes bibliographical references

Childhood trauma affects up to 60% of adults in the United States alone (Merrick et al., 2018), and leads to multiple mental health problems in adulthood such as depression, anxiety, alcohol/drug abuse, eating disorders, obesity, and suicide attempts (Felitti et al., 1998; Green et al., 2010). As such, research has begun to focus on not only the outcomes of childhood trauma, but also on the mechanisms by which those outcomes may occur. One increasingly recognized mechanism is emotional avoidance, as avoidance of distressing stimuli and their associated emotions has been shown to increase distress in the long run (Gross & Levenson, 1997). Two phenomena that have been associated with emotional avoidance in childhood trauma survivors are alexithymia and experiential avoidance (EA), both of which have been theorized as learned coping behaviors that may emerge during childhood. Despite this, research linking alexithymia, EA, and childhood trauma is limited. To our knowledge, most research that has examined the relationship between EA and alexithymia has done so in individuals with various psychological difficulties such as depression (Panayiotou et al., 2015), anxiety (Celikbas et al., 2021), drinking behaviors (Stewart et al., 2002), non-suicidal self-injury (Greene et al., 2019), and posttraumatic-stress symptoms in adulthood (Thompson & Waltz, 2010), but rarely within those with a history of childhood trauma. Moreover, the current standard of measurement for both EA and Alexithymia is largely based on self-report, which comes with its own set of limitations such as response bias, social desirability bias, and reliance on the assumption of one's ability to accurately identify their own experience. Being that alexithymia and EA have both been hypothesized as developing in response to adverse childhood experiences, that both are conceptualized as ineffective emotion regulation strategies, and that both have been implicated in the development and maintenance of psychological dysfunction, examination of these variables together warrants further investigation. As such, the current study sought to investigate this gap in this literature. Specifically, this study sought to examine these relationships in a sample of college undergraduates. Undergraduates from Hofstra University taking an Introductory to Psychology class were recruited via Sona Systems (n=151). Utilizing a series of self-report measures and a behavioral writing task, this study tested the following hypotheses: (1) that there would be a significant positive relationship between childhood trauma and experiential avoidance, (2) that there would be a significant positive relationship between childhood trauma and alexithymia, (3) there would be a significant negative correlation between childhood trauma (i.e., the five subscales on the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire) and participants' linguistic word count (LWC) for a written narrative of a negative event, (4) scores from the five subscales of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) would be significant positive predictors of alexithymia, with emotional neglect being the strongest predictor, and (5) scores from the five subscales of the CTQ would be significant positive predictors of experiential avoidance, with emotional neglect being the strongest predictor. In addition, this study examined three follow-up analyses: (1 and 2) that experiential avoidance would mediate the relationship between childhood trauma (emotional abuse and emotional neglect) and alexithymia, and that (3) individuals with higher levels of childhood trauma would report greater difficulties with emotion regulation than their counterparts with lower levels of childhood trauma. Finally, additional exploratory analyses were used to analyze the hypotheses involving alexithymia using a select sample of individuals with "probable PTSD." Results indicated that alexithymia was not related to a history of childhood trauma or alexithymia, but having a history of childhood trauma was significantly related to both experiential avoidance and one's proclivity to either engage in effective or ineffective emotion regulation strategies. When examining the relationship between various types of childhood trauma and experiential avoidance while controlling for current PTSD symptoms and emotion regulation strategies, the various subtypes of trauma become insignificant, and one's proclivity to engage in either effective or ineffective emotional regulation strategies differentially impacted the level of experiential avoidance they engaged in. Follow up and exploratory analyses revealed that these relationships held even when only looking at the probable PTSD sample. Ways that the results from this study can inform both research and practice are discussed.

Electronic reproduction.
Ann Arbor, Mich. :
ProQuest,
2024

Mode of access: World Wide Web

ISBN: 9798382026992Subjects--Topical Terms:

649607
Clinical psychology.
Subjects--Index Terms:

Childhood traumaIndex Terms--Genre/Form:

554714
Electronic books.

Childhood Trauma and Emotion Regulation : = The Roles of Alexithymia and Experiential Avoidance in Emerging Adults.
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