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The impact of attachment distress on affect-centered mentalization: An experimental study in psychosomatic patients and healthy adults

INTRODUCTION: We investigated the impact of attachment distress on affect-centered mentalization in a clinical and a non-clinical sample, comparing mentalization in a baseline condition to mentalization under a condition of attachment distress. METHODS: The sample consisted of 127 adults who underwe...

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Autores principales: Herrmann, Anna S., Beutel, Manfred E., Gerzymisch, Katharina, Lane, Richard D., Pastore-Molitor, Janine, Wiltink, Jörg, Zwerenz, Rüdiger, Banerjee, Mita, Subic-Wrana, Claudia
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5908075/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29672540
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0195430
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author Herrmann, Anna S.
Beutel, Manfred E.
Gerzymisch, Katharina
Lane, Richard D.
Pastore-Molitor, Janine
Wiltink, Jörg
Zwerenz, Rüdiger
Banerjee, Mita
Subic-Wrana, Claudia
author_facet Herrmann, Anna S.
Beutel, Manfred E.
Gerzymisch, Katharina
Lane, Richard D.
Pastore-Molitor, Janine
Wiltink, Jörg
Zwerenz, Rüdiger
Banerjee, Mita
Subic-Wrana, Claudia
author_sort Herrmann, Anna S.
collection PubMed
description INTRODUCTION: We investigated the impact of attachment distress on affect-centered mentalization in a clinical and a non-clinical sample, comparing mentalization in a baseline condition to mentalization under a condition of attachment distress. METHODS: The sample consisted of 127 adults who underwent inpatient psychosomatic treatment, and 34 mentally healthy adults. Affect-centered mentalization was assessed by analyzing participants’ narratives on interpersonal situations in a baseline condition with the Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (LEAS), and an experimental condition inducing attachment distress with the Adult Attachment Projective Picture System (AAP). Unlike the LEAS, the AAP is specifically designed to trigger attachment distress. In both conditions, the narratives were evaluated using the LEAS scoring system. Additionally, we assessed the impact of childhood trauma on affect-centered mentalization with the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ). RESULTS: While the non-clinical sample displayed the same level of affect-centered mentalization in both conditions, the majority of the clinical sample reached higher scores in the attachment distress condition. There was no strong relationship between reported trauma and mentalization scores. DISCUSSION: Our findings lend strong empirical support to the assumption that affect-centered mentalization is modulated by attachment-related distress. Several possible explanations for the differences between and within the clinical and the non-clinical sample are discussed.
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spelling pubmed-59080752018-05-06 The impact of attachment distress on affect-centered mentalization: An experimental study in psychosomatic patients and healthy adults Herrmann, Anna S. Beutel, Manfred E. Gerzymisch, Katharina Lane, Richard D. Pastore-Molitor, Janine Wiltink, Jörg Zwerenz, Rüdiger Banerjee, Mita Subic-Wrana, Claudia PLoS One Research Article INTRODUCTION: We investigated the impact of attachment distress on affect-centered mentalization in a clinical and a non-clinical sample, comparing mentalization in a baseline condition to mentalization under a condition of attachment distress. METHODS: The sample consisted of 127 adults who underwent inpatient psychosomatic treatment, and 34 mentally healthy adults. Affect-centered mentalization was assessed by analyzing participants’ narratives on interpersonal situations in a baseline condition with the Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (LEAS), and an experimental condition inducing attachment distress with the Adult Attachment Projective Picture System (AAP). Unlike the LEAS, the AAP is specifically designed to trigger attachment distress. In both conditions, the narratives were evaluated using the LEAS scoring system. Additionally, we assessed the impact of childhood trauma on affect-centered mentalization with the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ). RESULTS: While the non-clinical sample displayed the same level of affect-centered mentalization in both conditions, the majority of the clinical sample reached higher scores in the attachment distress condition. There was no strong relationship between reported trauma and mentalization scores. DISCUSSION: Our findings lend strong empirical support to the assumption that affect-centered mentalization is modulated by attachment-related distress. Several possible explanations for the differences between and within the clinical and the non-clinical sample are discussed. Public Library of Science 2018-04-19 /pmc/articles/PMC5908075/ /pubmed/29672540 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0195430 Text en © 2018 Herrmann et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Herrmann, Anna S.
Beutel, Manfred E.
Gerzymisch, Katharina
Lane, Richard D.
Pastore-Molitor, Janine
Wiltink, Jörg
Zwerenz, Rüdiger
Banerjee, Mita
Subic-Wrana, Claudia
The impact of attachment distress on affect-centered mentalization: An experimental study in psychosomatic patients and healthy adults
title The impact of attachment distress on affect-centered mentalization: An experimental study in psychosomatic patients and healthy adults
title_full The impact of attachment distress on affect-centered mentalization: An experimental study in psychosomatic patients and healthy adults
title_fullStr The impact of attachment distress on affect-centered mentalization: An experimental study in psychosomatic patients and healthy adults
title_full_unstemmed The impact of attachment distress on affect-centered mentalization: An experimental study in psychosomatic patients and healthy adults
title_short The impact of attachment distress on affect-centered mentalization: An experimental study in psychosomatic patients and healthy adults
title_sort impact of attachment distress on affect-centered mentalization: an experimental study in psychosomatic patients and healthy adults
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5908075/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29672540
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0195430
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