The Influence of Attachment Styles and Personality Organization on Emotional Functioning after Childhood Trauma

Autor(en)

Jürgen Fuchshuber, Michaela Hiebler-Ragger, Adelheid Kresse, Hans-Peter Kapfhammer, Human-Friedrich Unterrainer

Abstrakt

Background: Current literature suggests a tenuous link among childhood trauma, personality organization, adult attachment, and emotional functioning in various psychiatric disorders. However, empirical research focusing on the interaction of these concepts is sparse. Therefore, this study intends to investigate the influence of personality organization and attachment dimensions on the relationship between childhood maltreatment and emotional functioning in adult life. To assess emotional functioning, we adopted the Affective Neuroscience model of primary emotions, comprising SEEKING, FEAR, ANGER, SADNESS, CARE, and PLAY. Methods: The total sample consisted of 616 nonclinical adults (Age: M = 30; SD = 9.53; 61.9% female). Path analysis was applied to investigate interactions among childhood trauma, personality organization, adult attachment, and primary emotion dispositions. Results: The findings suggest that childhood trauma significantly predicted deficits in personality organization and insecure attachment (all p < 0.001). Furthermore, a reduced level of personality organization was significantly associated with increased ANGER (p < 0.001), whereas adult attachment substantially predicted primary emotion dispositions in general. Moreover, the results indicate significant mediational effects of personality organization and attachment dimensions on the relationship between childhood trauma and primary emotions (p < 0.01). The final model was able to explain 48% of the variance in SADNESS, 38% in PLAY, 35% in FEAR, 28% in CARE, 14% in ANGER, and 13% in SEEKING. Discussion: The findings contribute to the understanding of the relationship between childhood maltreatment and impaired emotional functioning in adult life. Furthermore, the importance of personality organization and attachment dimensions for emotion regulation is underlined. Consequently, the treatment of patients with childhood trauma should focus on facilitating the development of more secure attachment patterns and increased personality functioning to improve overall emotional functioning.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Religionswissenschaft

Externe Organisation(en)

Medizinische Universität Graz, Verein Grüner Kreis

Journal

Frontiers in Psychiatry

Band

10

Anzahl der Seiten

10

ISSN

1664-0640

DOI

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00643

Publikationsdatum

09-2019

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

603910 Religionspsychologie

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Psychiatry and Mental health

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/the-influence-of-attachment-styles-and-personality-organization-on-emotional-functioning-after-childhood-trauma(02f3cece-7f1e-4859-adea-313b7fd794c1).html