Attachment style, representations of self and others, and affect regulation: Implications for the experience of depression.
Item
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Title
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Attachment style, representations of self and others, and affect regulation: Implications for the experience of depression.
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Identifier
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AAI9946189
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identifier
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9946189
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Creator
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Levy, Kenneth Neil.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Diana Diamond
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Date
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1999
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Clinical | Psychology, Social
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Abstract
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The capacity for affect regulation is essential for healthy adaptation, and impairments in the ability to regulate affect increases an individual's vulnerability to a variety of psychological difficulties. An increasing number of studies have documented that both impaired mental representations and insecure attachment are related to increased risk for problems in affect regulation such as depression. However, there is a dearth of empirical data linking mental representations and insecure attachment to affect regulation and depression. The present study examined the hypothesis that differences in adult attachment styles are associated with differences in the content and structure of mental representations and with qualitatively different ways of modulating affects.;One hundred twenty-eight undergraduates were classified into one of four attachment groups using the Relationship Questionnaire (Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1993). Mental representations were assessed using procedures developed by Blatt, Diamond, and their colleagues (Blatt et al., 1992; Diamond et al., 1995). Affect regulation was assessed using the Affect Regulation Scale (Levy, 1994), the Affect Regulation Questionnaire (Schaffer, 1992), and the Depressive Experiences Questionnaire (Blatt et al., 1979).;Correlational, multivariate analyses of variance, and regression analyses revealed significant relationships among attachment patterns, mental representations, affect regulation, and depression. Secure and fearful individuals evidenced significantly more complex, differentiated, and integrated representations of self and others. While there were no differences in the self-report of adaptive affect regulation strategies, preoccupied and dismissive subjects reported using significantly more maladaptive affect regulation strategies. Preoccupied individuals tended toward oral-somatic and self-injurious behaviors to regulate affect, whereas dismissing individuals were more likely to employ sex, drugs, and violent fantasy and behaviors to regulate negative internal states. In contrast, secure and fearful individuals' narrative descriptions of feeling states evidenced higher developmental levels of affective organization than preoccupied and dismissing subjects. Finally, secure attachment was negatively related to depression, fearful attachment was related to an interpersonally-based depression, while anxious-ambivalent attachment was related to a more anaclitic needy depression.;Findings are consistent with previous research and further contribute to our understanding by elaborating the relationship between adult attachment style, mental representations, and affect regulation. The developmental and clinical implications of these findings are discussed.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
