The relationship among abusive parenting, dissociative tendency, somatoform dissociation, alexithymia, and physical and psychological health

Abstract

The Relationship among abusive home environment and dissociative tendency of body and mind, alexithymia tendency, and physical and mental health.This study examines the relationship among abusive home environment, psychological dissociative tendencies, somatoform dissociation and alexithymia tendencies. A sample of 250 university students participated in a questionnaire survey. The results indicate, significantly positive correlations between each scale, with the exception of the subscale in alexithymia tendency as illustrated by previous research. However, when hierarchical multiple regression analysis was conducted as mental and physical symptoms as dependent variables, the effect of psychosomatic dissociation became non-significant. The results of cluster analysis indicate the followings; two groups of healthy (54.3%), three groups of slightly unhealthy (35.9%), and two groups of clearly unhealthy (9.8%), and the least healthy group shows an extremely high level of psychological dissociative tendencies and somatoform dissociation. It can also be noted that those who show highly psychological dissociative symptoms are unhealthy, regardless of the scores of other measures. Having a high score on scales regarding an abusive home environment or alexithymia tendency did not have any prominent signs of being unhealthy.