Emotional Disengagement Research Articles

Antidepressants: misnamed and misrepresented.

Antidepressants: misnamed and misrepresented.

Perceived Stress and Coping Strategies in Relation to Body Mass Index: Cross-Sectional Study of 12,045 Japanese Men and Women.

Background Accumulated evidence suggests a weak positive relationship between psychosocial stress and body mass index (BMI), but little is known about stress coping strategies and BMI. Objective We aimed to examine if perceived stress and coping strategies are related to BMI, with any of their mutual interactions on BMI. Methods This cross-sectional study included 5,063 men and 6,982 women aged 40-69 years. A self-administered questionnaire ascertained perceived stress and 5 items of coping strategies (emotion expression, emotional support seeking, positive reappraisal, problem solving, and disengagement). Analyses were performed by gender with adjustment for age, socioeconomic status, and lifestyle factors. Results No significant associations were detected between perceived stress and BMI in either men (Ptrend = 0.09) or women (Ptrend = 0.58). In men, however, ‘disengagement’ showed an inverse association with BMI (Ptrend < 0.001), and ‘positive reappraisal’ and ‘problem solving’ revealed a positive association with BMI (Ptrend = 0.04 and 0.007, respectively) even after controlling for perceived stress. A possible interaction between perceived stress and ‘disengagement’ on BMI was found in men (Pinteraction = 0.027); the inverse association between ‘disengagement’ and BMI was more evident in higher levels of stress (β = −0.13, Ptrend = 0.21 in low; β = −0.22, Ptrend = 0.01 in medium; and β = −0.24, Ptrend = 0.06 in high). In men, ‘disengagement’ was inversely associated with overweight/obesity (odds ratio 0.79, 95% confidential interval 0.67-0.95), and “positive reappraisal” was positively associated with it (1.25, 1.02-1.54). Conclusions Coping strategies may have an important role in developing overweight/obesity, particularly in men.

Predicting three types of dissociation in female survivors of intimate partner violence

ABSTRACTPrevious research suggests that studying the effect of dissociation is particularly important in survivors of intimate partner violence because of the risk of revictimization. The current study investigated demographic variables, child and current abuse characteristics, coping style, and cognitive distortions as predictors of peritraumatic, trait, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)–related dissociation in a sample of female intimate partner violence survivors. The sample consisted of 372 women, the majority African American, with an average age of 34.41 years (SD = 8.09). Peritraumatic dissociation was significantly predicted by child physical abuse, current abuse injury, cognitive distortions about safety, and problem disengagement coping. Trait dissociation was significantly predicted by minority race, personal income, and cognitive distortions about safety and self-worth. PTSD-related dissociation was significantly predicted by cognitive distortions about self-worth, problem and emotion disengagement coping, and peritraumatic dissociation. In the models predicting both trait and PTSD-related dissociation, abuse characteristics significantly predicted dissociation until the entry of cognitive variables into the model. The analysis indicated a significant indirect effect of cognitive distortions on the relationship between current sexual aggression and trait dissociation. Results also suggested that there were indirect effects of both cognitive distortions and peritraumatic dissociation on the relationships between current psychological abuse/injury and PTSD-related dissociation. Findings point to the importance of cognitions in the development and maintenance of dissociation and suggest that treatments designed to help clients accept and process traumatic events may help reduce dissociation and in turn prevent future revictimization.

Dimensional Latent Structure of Relationship Quality: Results of Three Representative Population Samples

A fundamental question facing every latent construct (e.g., relationship quality) is whether the construct is categorical or dimensional in nature. The authors analyzed the latent status of relationship quality in 3 large general German population samples using the Partnership Questionnaire (PFB), the Quality of Relationship Inventory, and the short form of the PFB (PFB‐K; N1 = 1,330, N2 = 1,494, N3 = 1,390). They applied 3 widely used taxometric methods: (a) MAXEIG, (b) MAMBAC, and (c) L‐Mode. Simulation data were created to evaluate the comparison curve fit index values, which were below 0.5 across the 3 German population samples, supporting a dimensional solution. Hence, in the current study the latent structure of relationship quality encompassed differences in degree rather than kind. Implications of the dimensional latent status of relationship quality, as well as causes of the discrepant findings with previous taxometric studies, are discussed.

Perceived Stress and Coping Strategies in Relation to Body Mass Index: Cross-Sectional Study of 12,045 Japanese Men and Women

BackgroundAccumulated evidence suggests a weak positive relationship between psychosocial stress and body mass index (BMI), but little is known about stress coping strategies and BMI.ObjectiveWe aimed to examine if perceived stress and coping strategies are related to BMI, with any of their mutual interactions on BMI.MethodsThis cross-sectional study included 5,063 men and 6,982 women aged 40-69 years. A self-administered questionnaire ascertained perceived stress and 5 items of coping strategies (emotion expression, emotional support seeking, positive reappraisal, problem solving, and disengagement). Analyses were performed by gender with adjustment for age, socioeconomic status, and lifestyle factors.ResultsNo significant associations were detected between perceived stress and BMI in either men (P trend = 0.09) or women (P trend = 0.58). In men, however, ‘disengagement’ showed an inverse association with BMI (P trend < 0.001), and ‘positive reappraisal’ and ‘problem solving’ revealed a positive association with BMI (P trend = 0.04 and 0.007, respectively) even after controlling for perceived stress. A possible interaction between perceived stress and ‘disengagement’ on BMI was found in men (P interaction = 0.027); the inverse association between ‘disengagement’ and BMI was more evident in higher levels of stress (β = −0.13, P trend = 0.21 in low; β = −0.22, P trend = 0.01 in medium; and β = −0.24, P trend = 0.06 in high). In men, ‘disengagement’ was inversely associated with overweight/obesity (odds ratio 0.79, 95% confidential interval 0.67-0.95), and “positive reappraisal” was positively associated with it (1.25, 1.02-1.54).ConclusionsCoping strategies may have an important role in developing overweight/obesity, particularly in men.

Social–ethnic school composition and disengagement: An inquiry into the perceived control explanation

In many Western countries, increasing levels of immigration have raised concerns over the outcomes of social–ethnic segregation in schools. This study relates social–ethnic school composition to students’ behavioral, emotional, and cognitive disengagement. While previous research mostly remains atheoretical, this current study investigates the applicability of the perceived control explanation, with the expectation that attending low socioeconomic status (SES) schools and schools with a higher proportion of ethnic minority pupils lowers students’ perceived control and hence produces disengagement. Multilevel analyses on data from the Flemish Educational Assessment, consisting of 11,759 students in 83 Flemish secondary schools, show that students in lower SES schools are more likely to disengage behaviorally and emotionally from school. This association is, as expected, mediated by feelings of perceived control. Higher ethnic minority concentration, however, yields lower disengagement, especially for ethnic minority students. The implications are discussed.

“Here, Everybody Moves”: Using Relational Cultural Therapy with Adult Third-Culture Kids

Researchers have underscored the need for appropriate counseling services for Third Culture Kids (TCKs), yet few have addressed therapeutic approaches. This article applies Relational-Cultural Therapy (RCT) to the counseling of Adult TCKs, focusing on TCK experiences such as inaccessibility of parents and ‘parentification’. The long-term impact of such childhood experiences, including emotional disengagement, role-playing, and replication, is explored. Finally, a case scenario is presented to illustrate the application of RCT.

Collective Self-Esteem and Coping Strategies among Vietnamese American Adolescents

The purpose of this study was to examine the collective self-esteem and coping strategies of Vietnamese American adolescents. Respondents were identified and recruited through the Union of Vietnamese Student Association of a large metropolitan city in California. A self-administered questionnaire, with parental consent, was given to 42 females and 36 males who attended a public high school. A significant positive correlation was found between collective self-esteem and instrumental support, and significant negative correlations were found between collective self-esteem and emotional support, disengagement, and venting. Implications for social work practice and policy were addressed.

Child-to-Parent Violence in Adolescents: The Perspectives of the Parents, Children, and Professionals in a Sample of Spanish Focus Group Participants

This study explored the characteristics of child-to-parent violence (CPV) in Spain based on the narrations of adolescents who perpetrate this kind of violence, their parents, and the professionals who work in this area. A qualitative design was used. Focus groups were asked about the risk factors associated with CPV, such as exposure to family violence, discipline, and psychological characteristics of the adolescents. Interviews were videotaped, transcribed, and reviewed independently by each investigator to identify and group distinct comments into categories with specific themes. Results suggest that CPV is mainly linked to exposure to marital conflict and family violence, permissive discipline, emotional disengagement in the father-child relationship, and symptoms of emotional stress and substance consumption in the children. Lastly, acts of CPV seem to be an attempt by the children to gain power in the context of family relations in which the parents display their incapacity to establish control. As several family and personal characteristics appear to be involved in CPV, it is recommended that family and individual approaches be considered for treatment.

Marital Processes, Neuroticism, and Stress as Risk Factors for Internalizing Symptoms.

Marital discord has a robust association with depression, yet it is rarely considered within broader etiological frameworks of psychopathology. Further, little is known about the particular aspects of relationships that have the greatest impact on psychopathology. The purpose of the present study was to test a novel conceptual framework including neuroticism, specific relationship processes (conflict management, partner support, emotional intimacy, and distribution of power and control), and stress as predictors of internalizing symptoms (depression and anxiety). Questionnaire and interview data were collected from 103 husbands and wives 5 times over the first 7 years of marriage. Results suggest that neuroticism (an expression of the underlying vulnerability for internalizing disorders) contributes to symptoms primarily through high levels of non-marital stress, an imbalance of power/control in one's marriage, and poor partner support for husbands, and through greater emotional disengagement for wives. Marital processes, neuroticism, and stress work together to significantly predict internalizing symptoms, demonstrating the need to routinely consider dyadic processes in etiological models of individual psychopathology. Specific recommendations for adapting and implementing couple interventions to prevent and treat individual psychopathology are discussed.

Affective commitment and turnover intentions among healthcare professionals: the role of emotional exhaustion and disengagement

This paper utilises the conservation of resources theory to examine the mediating role played by disengagement in the relationships between emotional exhaustion, affective commitment and turnover intentions among healthcare professionals. Structural equation modelling was conducted on data obtained from 302 healthcare professionals in a major Australian cancer hospital. Our findings demonstrate that disengagement fully mediates the relationships between emotional exhaustion and both affective commitment and turnover intentions. Recommendations for future research are suggested and practical implications discussed.

Dignity in Care: Time to Take Action

Providing care for patients and caring about patients should go hand in hand. Caring implicates our fundamental attitude towards patients, and our ability to convey kindness, compassion and respect. Yet all too often, patients and families experience health care as impersonal, mechanical; and quickly discover that patienthood trumps personhood. The consequences of a medical system organized around care rather than caring are considerable. Despite technical competence, patients and families are less satisfied with medical encounters when caring is lacking. Lack of empathy and emotional disengagement from patients typifies health care provider burnout. Caring is the gateway to disclosure; without it, patients are less likely to say what is bothering them, leading to missed diagnoses, medical errors and compromised patient safety. There are also liability issues, with most complaints levied against health care professionals stemming from failures in care tenor. Formal education for health care providers lacks a continued focus on achieving a culture of caring. If caring really matters, health care systems can insist on certain behaviors and impose certain obligations on health care providers to improve care tenor, empathy, and effective communication. Caregivers need to be engaged in looking at their own attitudes towards patients, their own vulnerability, their own fears and whatever else it is that shapes their tone of care. Health care professionals must set aside some time, supported by their institutions, to advance a culture of caring—now is the time to take action.

Writing Africa into the World and Writing the World from Africa:

Writing Africa into the World and Writing the World from Africa:

Evidence of Attachment Disorganization and Growth in One Mother's Descriptions of Her Son: A Case Study

This case study analyzes descriptions given by a 21-year-old mother of her 3-year-old son as illustrations of characteristics consistent with attachment disorganization. Descriptions are taken from two sources: the Insightfulness Assessment, an attachment-based interview designed to assess qualities of caregivers' internal working models of their children, and group sessions of an attachment-based parenting intervention, the Circle of Security. Relevant discourse qualities identified include emotional disengagement; contradictory and unintegrated positive and negative perceptions; intrusive, painful memories from her past; blurring of identity boundaries; and feelings of burden mixed with fears of his emotional estrangement from her. Changes in discourse qualities are also identified that appear consistent with changes in attachment security assessed for both mother and child before and after the mother's participation in the intervention. Understanding of attachment disorganization and associated discourse characteristics is important because of its prevalence among maltreating parents and the life-span developmental consequences with which it is associated.

The Missing Link between Juvenile Delinquency and Pediatric Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: An Attachment Theory Lens

The present paper reviews pediatric posttraumatic stress disorder, emphasizing the relational basis of the disorder and highlighting the missing link between juvenile delinquency and trauma. The first part of the paper defines trauma and the diagnostic criteria for PTSD, noting child-specific features. The second part reviews the literature emphasizing the relational and attachment relevant nature of trauma. The third part explores psychological mechanisms for how attachment relations could affect trauma responses. Attachment relations (1) shape core schemas of the world, others, and the self and (2) foster emotional engagement or disengagement, both of which have been associated with traumatic responses. The most empirically supported pediatric trauma treatment, trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (TF-CBT), acknowledges the attachment figure's influence and includes treating and training the parent and conjoint child-parent discussion. The next section reviews the noteworthy link between juvenile delinquency and trauma history. More awareness of trauma and PTSD in children and adolescents is recommended to effectively address juvenile delinquency. The review ends with a few helpful points for practicing pediatricians regarding childhood trauma.

The development of father–child attachment: associations between adult attachment representations, recollections of childhood experiences and caregiving

The association between fathers' adult attachment representations and their recollections of childhood experiences with their caregiving quality with their eight-month-old infants and with father–infant attachment classification was examined in a longitudinal study of 117 fathers and their infants. Sensitive caregiving was related to secure-autonomous classification in the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), hostile caregiving was related to fathers' dismissing and unresolved attachment, and emotional disengagement and role-reversed caregiving were both related to fathers' unresolved attachment. Childhood experiences of parental pressure to achieve were related to fathers' hostile and role-reversed caregiving and low sensitivity, independent of AAI classification. However, fathers' childhood experiences of maternal neglect were related to high-quality caregiving. It was also found that fathers' secure-autonomous AAI classification was related to secure father–child attachment in the Strange Situation Paradigm, and this relation was mediated by sensitive caregiving.

The Marketization of Higher Education

Cote, James E., and Anton L. Allahar. 2011. Lowering Higher Education: The Rise of Corporate Universities and the Fall of Liberal Education. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. $60.00 hc. $24.95 sc. 256 pp.Slaughter, Sheila, and Gary Rhoades. 2009. Academic Capitalism and the New Economy: Markets, State, and Higher Education. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. $32.00 sc. 384 pp.Few would argue that higher education isn't in crisis. Colleges and universities presently face a number of challenges: looming budget cuts, growing workloads and class sizes, rising grade inflation, growing tuition rates, and antagonistic public opinion. Several recent scholarly publications explore these problems from a range of perspectives. Among these are works that gauge undergraduate learning, argue for the importance of the humanities in examine the experience of campus employees, defend the concept of tenure, or critique the rise of the administrative infrastructure. In spite of their varied approaches, the same overarching theme appears over and over again: through its attempts to ensure its own survival, the university has reshaped and exploited itself at the expense of students, faculty, and the public good. Included in this growing body of work are James E. Cote and Anton L. Allahar's Lowering Higher Education: The Rise of Corporate Universities and the Fall of Liberal Education and Sheila Slaughter and Gary Rhoades's Academic Capitalism and the New Economy: Markets, State, and Higher Education. These books share the project of moving beyond analyses of individual issues and problems to a broader focus on the nature of contemporary academic culture, and both show how academic culture has shifted in worrying ways. Lowering Higher Education and Academic Capitalism offer different portraits of contemporary higher education as a result of their concentrations on, respectively, arts programs in Canadian public universities and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) disciplines in US research universities. However, both sets of authors emphasize the need to understand underlying values in order to address the problems arising from the university's ongoing transformation.Each work imagines current university attitudes and values to be in conflict with the original of higher education. Cote and Allahar identify the problem of Canadian higher education as mission drift, whereby liberal educational programs [have been transformed] . . . into pseudo-vocational ones (2011, 5). They connect administrative educational policies to increased student enrollments and lower academic standards, resulting in the psychological and emotional disengagement of students and faculty. Slaughter and Rhoades hypothesize along similar lines, though their use of what they term regimes indicates their focus remains at a macro level. They examine how a large US university runs, the networks that constitute it, and the way that it produces and commodifies knowledge. They too argue that a shifthas taken place from a knowledge regime dedicated to the public good to an academic capitalist one that [blurs] boundaries between markets, states, and higher education, and posits knowledge as something to be privately owned rather than publicly shared (2009, 11). Slaughter and Rhoades assert that what we consider valuable in contemporary academic culture has changed; we have moved from an understanding that foregrounds the public good and the valuing of abstract knowledge to one that privileges content-based learning and the output of tangible products in the interest of generating revenue. Both pairs of authors evince concern with the university's shift; where they differ most explicitly is in their explanations of how it happened.Lowering Higher Education argues that students no longer practice higherlevel thinking about abstract concepts, think critically and reflexively about the world around them, or learn for the sake of learning. …

Student Disengagement in Relation to Expected and Unexpected Educational Pathways

Students' different educational pathways were examined in relation to their disengagement during adolescence. The participants were Icelandic youth (N = 832) who were followed from age 14 to 22. Based on their academic achievement at age 15 and educational attainment at age 22 they were classified into groups that took expected versus unexpected paths. The findings indicate that adolescents' behavioral disengagement (negative school behaviors) and emotional disengagement (academic disinterest, disidentification with school) differentiated according to their pathways. At age 14, those “at risk” academically who graduated unexpectedly showed fewer negative behaviors than the expected dropouts. Moreover, high achievers who dropped out unexpectedly showed more behavioral (negative behaviors) as well as emotional (academic disinterest, disidentification with school) disengagement compared to expected graduates. The following year (age 15), in general, disengagement increased among unexpected dropouts but decreased among expected graduates. Males and students from lower-SES backgrounds were generally more disengaged, and males from those backgrounds became more emotionally disengaged during their last year in compulsory school.

Conceptualizing Mindfulness and Acceptance as Components of Psychological Resilience to Trauma

Mindfulness- and acceptance-based conceptualizations of PTSD implicate experiential avoidance and non-mindful behavior in the etiology and maintenance of the disorder. If experiential avoidance is associated with vulnerability to PTSD, then a mindful and accepting orientation toward experience may confer psychological resilience following exposure to trauma. This article examines how mindfulness- and acceptance-based theories of psychopathology relate to risk of and resilience to PTSD. Research is reviewed dealing with the impact of experiential avoidance, avoidant coping, dissociation, acceptance, and mindfulness on PTSD symptom severity and posttraumatic functioning. This review suggests that trait mindfulness and acceptance are associated with greater psychological adjustment following exposure to trauma, while experiential avoidance, persistent dissociation, and coping strategies involving emotional disengagement are associated with greater PTSD symptom severity and related psychopathology. Methodological challenges are explored and suggestions for future research and PTSD prevention programs are discussed.

Healthy brooders employ more attentional resources when disengaging from the negative: an event-related fMRI study

Depressive brooding is considered a maladaptive ruminative-thinking style that has been shown to be highly correlated with major depression. The present study in healthy participants employed event-related fMRI to uncover the neural underpinnings of emotional disengagement as it relates to depressive brooding. Thirty-four healthy, never depressed individuals performed an emotional go/no-go task with a rapid presentation of emotional faces. We focused on the contrast of inhibiting sad (happy/no-go) versus inhibiting happy (sad/no-go) information. This contrast allowed us to assess possible difficulties in disengaging from emotionally negative, as compared with emotionally positive, faces. At the behavioral level, only in high brooders were higher self-reported brooding scores correlated with more errors when sad information was inhibited, relative to happy information. At the neural level, across all participants, brooding scores were positively correlated with activity in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC; BA 46), implying that high brooders show higher DLPFC involvement when successfully disengaging from a series of negative stimuli. These results may suggest that healthy individuals who report a high brooding thinking style need to recruit more attentional control in order to disengage successfully from negative information, in a way that may be related to emotion regulation strategies. These mechanisms might protect them from developing depressive symptoms.