Deficits In Regulation Research Articles

Differences in Emotion Regulation Considering Gender, Age, and Gambling Preferences in a Sample of Gambling Disorder Patients.

Introduction: Impairments in emotion regulation are understood to be a transdiagnostic risk factor of suffering from compulsive and addictive behaviors. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of emotion regulation deficits in gambling disorder and to analyze these differences taking gender, age, and gambling activity preferences into account. Methods: The sample included n = 484 patients seeking treatment for gambling disorder at a specialized outpatient service. Main outcomes were sociodemographic variables, emotion regulation, and gambling severity. Results: Differences between sexes were found in non-acceptance of emotions. Older patients obtained higher levels in non-acceptance of emotions, lack of emotion regulation strategies, emotional clarity, and global emotion regulation scores. No differences were found in emotion scores considering gambling preferences (non-strategic versus strategic). Path analysis showed that emotion regulation scores and age had a direct effect on gambling disorder severity, while emotion regulation and gambling preference were not mediational variables in the relationships of gender and age with gambling severity. Conclusions: Emotion regulation impairments differ in patients seeking treatment for gambling problems. Early prevention and intervention programs should incorporate the different dimensions of this process, taking into account clinical phenotypes.

Avaliação da regulação sensorial do equilíbrio corporal e risco de queda de mulheres adultas e idosas fisicamente ativas

OBJECTIVE: To examine the sensory performance of static and dynamic balance regulation and the risk of falling in physically active adult and elderly women.METHOD: This is a non-probabilistic and intentional cross-sectional study. Thirty four women (51.90±15.84 years) enrolled in a gym attended. The population evaluated was stratified in age groups: 20-59 years (n=18) and 60 69 years (n=16). The gait was evaluated by the Time Up and Go (TUGs), Time Up and Go manual (TUGm), and Time Up and Go cognitive (TUGc), the balance by the Dynamic Gait Index (DGI) and Body Balance Test (TEC). RESULTS: Student’s t-test showed significant differences between age groups for comorbidities: hearing, vision, vertigo, labyrinthitis (p≤0.05). Comparatively, adult women showed better performance indices than older women in physical tests. According to the standards of the tests, there was no risk of falling for any group. However, regardless of age, a detailed examination of the TEC test showed a deficit in the sensory regulation of the visual, vestibular and somatosensory systems of the static and dynamic balance of fallers and non fallers (p≤0.05). The logistic regression analysis indicated the interoceptive regulation of the dynamic balance as a predictor of fall (p≤0.05). CONCLUSION: Deficits in the vestibular and somatosensory systems gradually potentiate the risk of falls in adult and elderly women, even if they remain physically active.

A Network Approach to Understanding the Emotion Regulation Benefits of Aerobic Exercise

Regular and even single sessions of aerobic exercise may benefit emotional health. Experiments show that prior exercise hastens emotional recovery following a stressor despite not changing reports of rumination or other emotion regulation difficulties. We use network analyses to explore whether traditional approaches for conceptualizing and measuring rumination (i.e. sum scores) could be occluding exercise-induced changes to emotion regulation. Participants (n = 226) were randomly assigned to a cycling (n = 113) or stretching control condition (n = 113). They then underwent a stressful speech task, followed by a recovery period. State rumination was measured through self-report. Graphical LASSO and relative importance networks and accompanying strength centrality indices were computed. Similar patterns emerged in both models. Declines in the strength centrality of self-criticism in the cycling group stood out. Exercise may alter the relations between rumination processes and target self-criticism in particular. This perspective offers important information about how exercise enhances well-being through emotion regulation as well as how to intervene on emotion regulation deficits more generally.

The Role of Cognitive Emotion Regulation Strategies on Problematic Smartphone Use: Comparison between Problematic and Non-Problematic Adolescent Users.

Prior work has suggested that individuals with deficits in emotion regulation skills are prone to compulsive behaviour and to following maladaptive coping strategies, such as smartphone overuse, to manage negative moods. Adolescence is a vulnerable developmental stage for deficits in emotion regulation, and these are linked to excessive smartphone use. The present study is the first to examine the links between the use of specific cognitive emotion regulation (CER) strategies and problematic smartphone use in a sample of adolescents. A total of 845 Spanish adolescents (455 females) completed the Spanish versions of the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire and the Smartphone Addiction Scale, along with a socio-demographic survey. The adolescents were divided into two groups: Non-problematic smartphone users (n = 491, 58.1%) and problematic smartphone users (n = 354, 41.9%). Significant group differences were found, with the problematic users reporting significantly higher scores for all maladaptive CER strategies, including higher self-blame, rumination, blaming of others and catastrophising. The results from logistic regression analyses show that rumination, catastrophising and blaming of others were the most important variables for distinguishing between the two groups, along with gender and parental control outside the home. In summary, these findings suggest the importance of specific maladaptive CER strategies in problematic smartphone use and provide insight for relevant targets for intervention designs.

A multimodal MRI study of the neural mechanisms of emotion regulation impairment in women with obesity

Maladaptive emotion regulation contributes to overeating and impedes weight loss. Our study aimed to compare the voluntary downregulation of negative emotions by means of cognitive reappraisal in adult women with obesity (OB) and female healthy controls (HC) using a data-driven, multimodal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) approach. Women with OB (n = 24) and HC (n = 25) carried out an emotion regulation task during functional MRI scanning. Seed-to-voxel resting-state connectivity patterns derived from activation peaks identified by this task were compared between groups. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) was used to examine white matter microstructure integrity between regions exhibiting group differences in resting-state functional connectivity. Participants in the OB group presented reduced activation in the ventromedial prefrontal (vmPFC) cortex in comparison to the HC group when downregulating negative emotions, along with heightened activation in the extrastriate visual cortex (p < 0.05, AlphaSim-corrected). Moreover, vmPFC peak activity levels during cognitive reappraisal were negatively correlated with self-reported difficulties in emotion regulation. OB patients exhibited decreased functional connectivity between the vmPFC and the temporal pole during rest (peak-pFWE = 0.039). Decreased fractional white-matter track volume in the uncinate fasciculus, which links these two regions, was also found in participants with OB. Taken together, our findings are indicative of emotion regulation deficits in OB being underpinned by dysfunctional hypoactivity in the vmPFC and hyperactivity in the extrastriate visual cortex. Our results provide a potential target circuit for neuromodulatory interventions to improve emotion regulation skills and weight-loss intervention outcomes.

Neurovascular coupling and cerebral autoregulation in atrial fibrillation

The risk of cognitive decline and stroke is increased by atrial fibrillation (AF). We sought to determine whether neurovascular coupling and cerebral autoregulation are blunted in people with AF in comparison with age-matched, patients with hypertension and healthy controls. Neurovascular coupling was assessed using five cycles of visual stimulation for 30 s followed by 30 s with both eyes-closed. Cerebral autoregulation was examined using a sit–stand test, and a repeated squat-to-stand (0.1 Hz) manoeuvre with transfer function analysis of mean arterial pressure (MAP; input) and middle cerebral artery mean blood flow velocity (MCA Vm; output) relationships at 0.1 Hz. Visual stimulation increased posterior cerebral artery conductance, but the magnitude of the response was blunted in patients with AF (18 [8] %; mean [SD]) and hypertension (17 [8] %), in comparison with healthy controls (26 [9] %) (P < 0.05). In contrast, transmission of MAP to MCA Vm was greater in AF patients compared to hypertension and healthy controls, indicating diminished cerebral autoregulation. We have shown for the first time that AF patients have impaired neurovascular coupling responses to visual stimulation and diminished cerebral autoregulation. Such deficits in cerebrovascular regulation may contribute to the increased risk of cerebral dysfunction in people with AF.

Emotion Regulation in Social Anxiety Disorder: Reappraisal and Acceptance of Negative Self-beliefs

BackgroundSocial anxiety disorder (SAD) is characterized by negative self-beliefs (NSBs) that are thought to maintain symptom severity—at least in part—by impairing emotion regulation. Few studies to date have investigated the neural basis of emotion regulation during NSBs in SAD. Moreover, different regulation strategies have not been directly compared, leaving open questions about the generality of emotion regulation deficits in SAD. MethodsPatients with SAD (n = 113) and healthy control subjects (n = 35) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while reacting to NSBs or attempting to downregulate negative emotions occasioned by NSBs using either reappraisal (reinterpreting negative beliefs) or acceptance (nonjudgmentally experiencing thoughts and emotions). Ratings of negative emotion were collected after each trial. ResultsWhen cued to do so, patients with SAD were able to downregulate negative emotions using both reappraisal and acceptance and demonstrated effective recruitment of frontoparietal regulatory regions. Patients with SAD demonstrated greater activation of default mode network and somatomotor regions for the react versus accept contrast. Both groups demonstrated reductions in frontoparietal and default mode network activation during acceptance relative to reappraisal. Greater SAD symptom severity was associated with lower activation in frontoparietal regions during both regulation conditions. ConclusionsThere were no group differences in frontoparietal recruitment during two distinct emotion regulation strategies. However, individual differences in symptom severity within the SAD group were associated with frontoparietal regulation–related activation. Patients with SAD were differentiated from control subjects in default mode network recruitment patterns, suggesting that acceptance may be a useful task condition for revealing altered neural activity in SAD.

Coping with stressful life events: Cognitive emotion regulation profiles and depressive symptoms in adolescents.

Cognitive strategies that adolescents use to cope with negative emotions might show distinct profiles of cognitive emotion regulation strategies, which could be differentially associated with depressive symptoms. In total, 411 Dutch adolescents who had experienced at least one stressful life event that required some coping strategy participated in this study, including 334 nonclinical and 77 clinically depressed adolescents (12-21 years). A person-centered approach with Latent Profile Analysis was used to identify underlying profiles of cognitive emotion regulation based on the adolescents' reports of their use of cognitive emotion regulation strategies when they were confronted with stressful life events. Nine different strategies, five adaptive and four maladaptive, were used as indicators. Four profiles with distinct features were found in the nonclinical sample, as well as in the combined sample of nonclinical and clinically depressed adolescents: Low Regulators, High Regulators, Maladaptive Regulators, and Adaptive Regulators. In both samples, the High Regulators profile was most commonly used, followed by the Adaptive, Maladaptive, and Low Regulators profile. Maladaptive Regulators endorsed higher levels of depressive symptoms relative to Low, High, and Adaptive Regulators. The findings underscore the utility of using a person-centered approach in order to identify patterns of cognitive emotion regulation deficits in psychopathology.

Emotion regulation in emerging adult gamblers and its mediating role with depressive symptomology

BackgroundIt is presently estimated that as much as 10% of emerging adults are at risk for a gambling disorder. The consequences stemming from problematic gambling engagement include increased substance use, mental health disorders, suicidality, financial strain and legal issues. The present study explores whether deficits in emotion regulation explain the association between problem gambling severity and depression. MethodsA sample of 820 emerging adult gamblers (Mage = 21.14 years-old, SD = 2.90, 50.9% female) completed an online survey including an assessment of problematic engagement in gambling over the past year, levels of anxious/depressive symptomology, and difficulties in emotion regulation. In total, 15.6% and 8.2% of this sample were at moderate or high risk for gambling disorder. ResultsResults from a linear regression model revealed that difficulties with impulse control positively contributed to problem gambling scores and engagement in goal-directed behavior positively contributed to problem gambling scores, even after accounting for symptoms of depression. Moreover, results from a mediation model revealed that the association between problem gambling and depression was explained by participants’ deficits in non-acceptance, goals, strategies, and clarity. LimitationsLimitations include the use of self-report and cross-sectional data making it difficult to infer causality. ConclusionsThese findings add to our understanding of the mechanisms that appear to explain for the first time the affective consequences of problem gambling. Enhancing specific dimensions of emotion regulation will allow for tailored interventions among gamblers with depression, ultimately achieving better mental health outcomes.

A-24 Metacognition and behavioral regulation associated with distinct connectivity patterns in autism spectrum disorder

Abstract Objective Executive function (EF) deficits are well documented in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD)1-2 and are commonly measured clinically using parent ratings3. No studies have investigated whether parent ratings of EF predict brain connectivity in ASD. Aim Examine whether the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF) predicts functional brain connectivity in ASD. Method Resting-state fMRI and behavioral data were obtained from the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange (ABIDE-II) database6 (n = 106 ASD, ages 5-13). ROI-to-ROI (Region of Interest) connectivity was computed for 132 ROIs spanning the whole brain, defined using Conn Toolbox. Multiple regression analyses examined the effect of BRIEF metacognition on connectivity while controlling for BRIEF behavioral regulation, and vice versa. Age, sex, and full-scale IQ were included as covariates. FDR correction was used (p &lt; 0.05). Results More severe deficits in metacognition were associated with stronger connectivity between the left hippocampus and several ROIs, including the cerebellum and planum temporale. More severe deficits in metacognition were associated with weaker right hippocampus – right frontal pole connectivity. More severe deficits in behavioral regulation were associated with stronger connectivity between subcortical regions (i.e., thalamus, putamen, and caudate) and regions involved in motor (superior frontal gyrus) and limbic systems (cingulate gyrus). More severe behavioral regulation deficits were associated with weaker cerebellar-cerebellar connectivity. Conclusions Findings suggest that parent-ratings of metacognitive abilities in children with ASD are associated with hippocampal connectivity, while behavioral regulation abilities are associated with thalamic and striatum connections. These results build upon previous studies of metacognition and behavioral regulation 5,6.

Emotion regulation and emotional eating in anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa

ABSTRACT Individuals with anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN) show emotion regulation deficits. While individuals with BN use binge eating to regulate negative affect, individuals with restricting-type AN may use self-starvation for this purpose. The current study examined the emotion regulatory function of over- and undereating in response to different emotional states in women with restrictive AN (n = 54), BN (n = 47), and women without eating disorders (n = 68). Participants completed self-report measures assessing the use of emotion regulation strategies and emotional eating. Both patient groups reported using more dysfunctional and less functional emotion regulation strategies than controls. The BN group reported eating more than usual in response to negative emotions but less than usual in response to positive emotions. In contrast, the AN group reported eating more than usual in response to positive emotions and less than usual in response to negative emotions. More dysfunctional emotion regulation related to eating less in response to negative emotions in the AN group. Less functional emotion regulation related to eating less when being happy in the BN group. The current study highlights the need to differentiate between different eating outcomes and different emotional states when examining emotion effects on food intake.

Emotion Regulation and Children With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: The Effect of Varying Phonological Working Memory Demands

Objective: Findings from extant studies of the relationship between ADHD-related emotion regulation and working memory deficits have been equivocal, and their correlational designs preclude inferences about the functional relationship between working memory demands and emotion regulation. This study aimed to experimentally examine the functional relationship between varying working memory demands and ADHD-related emotion regulation deficits. Method: Overt emotion regulation behaviors were coded while children with and without ADHD completed experimental tasks that manipulated low and high working memory demands. Results: Compared with typically developing children, children with ADHD exhibited large-magnitude overall emotion expression deficits, disproportionately greater self-criticism during high working memory conditions, and disproportionately greater positive emotion expression during low working memory demand conditions. Conclusion: These findings suggest that working memory demands are functionally related to emotion regulation deficits exhibited by children with ADHD and may explicate variability of emotion regulation difficulties related to environmental demands.

Relationship between emotion regulation, negative affect, gender and delay discounting

The concept of emotion regulation states that individuals with poorly regulated emotions often engage in maladaptive behaviours to escape from or down-regulate their emotions, creating risk for a range of maladaptive behaviors. One such behavior may be higher delay discounting, which reflects greater impulsivity. The goal of the present study was therefore to examine the relationship between emotion regulation strategies and deficits with discounting of delayed monetary outcomes (N = 458). Results showed that general emotion dysregulation was associated with greater delay discounting. Also, negative affect was directly related to greater delay discounting. However, specific regulation deficits, including deficits in emotional clarity, emotional awareness, acceptance of emotions, ability to engage in goal directed behaviors when distressed, impulse control, and access to effective regulation strategies, were associated with greater delay discounting above and beyond variance contributed by negative affectivity. Next, people who showed greater delay discounting reported significantly more use of suppression as a maladaptive emotion regulation strategy, compared to people who show shallow delay discounting. Finally, gender was related to a number of key study variables, with women reporting greater negative affect, slower delay discounting, and greater general difficulties with emotion regulation, less access to regulation strategies, and less ability to engage in goal directed behavior when upset, than men.

Emotion Regulation Difficulties During and After Partial Hospitalization Treatment Across Eating Disorders

Emotion regulation deficits are associated with eating disorder (ED) symptoms, regardless of eating disorder diagnosis. Thus, recent treatment approaches for EDs, such as dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), have focused on teaching patients skills to better regulate emotions. The present study examined changes in emotion regulation among adult patients with EDs during DBT-oriented partial hospital treatment, and at follow-up (M[SD] = 309.58[144.59] days from discharge). Exploratory analyses examined associations between changes in emotion regulation and ED symptoms. Patients with anorexia nervosa, restricting (AN-R, n = 77), and binge-eating/purging subtype (AN-BP, n = 46), or bulimia nervosa (BN, n = 118) completed the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) at admission, discharge, and follow-up. Patients with BN demonstrated significant improvements across all facets of emotion dysregulation from admission to discharge and maintained improvements at follow-up. Although patients with AN-BP demonstrated statistically significant improvements on overall emotion regulation, impulsivity, and acceptance, awareness, and clarity of emotions, from admission to discharge, these improvements were not significant at follow-up. Patients with AN-R demonstrated statistically significant improvements on overall emotion dysregulation from treatment admission to discharge. Changes in emotion regulation were moderately correlated with changes in ED symptoms over time. Results support different trajectories of emotion regulation symptom change in DBT-oriented partial hospital treatment across ED diagnoses, with patients with BN demonstrating the most consistent significant improvements.

Non-suicidal self-injury and bulimia: the role of emotion dysregulation and body dissatisfaction

PurposeRisk factors of negative affect, body dissatisfaction, distress tolerance, and negative urgency are independently associated with bulimia symptoms and non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI). However, relationships of these risk factors within comorbid presentations are not fully understood. The current study examined specific roles of these risk factors within this relationship.MethodsAn at-risk community sample of young adults (N = 429) completed an online survey of negative affect, body dissatisfaction, distress tolerance, negative urgency, bulimia symptoms, and NSSI.ResultsA hypothesized path model was a good fit to the data. Results indicated direct paths from body dissatisfaction, negative urgency, and distress tolerance to bulimia symptoms. Negative urgency, distress tolerance, and bulimia symptoms were directly associated with NSSI. Consistent with hypotheses, distress tolerance and negative urgency acted as vulnerability factors, increasing the strength of associations between bulimia symptoms and NSSI. Distress tolerance also strengthened associations between negative urgency and NSSI. In addition to the direct effect, negative urgency was indirectly associated with NSSI via body dissatisfaction bulimia. Hypothesized indirect effects through distress tolerance were not supported.ConclusionsResults support etiological models of bulimia and NSSI, and suggest deficits in emotion regulation strengthen risk of comorbid presentations. Furthermore, individuals with greater impulsivity and difficulty tolerating distress are at increased risk of engaging in both bulimia behaviors and NSSI, providing targets for clinical intervention.Level of evidenceLevel V, cross-sectional descriptive study.

Affective attunement in peer dyads containing children adopted from institutions.

Children who have experienced institutional care early in life tend to show deficits in behavioral and adrenocortical regulation that impact their ability to form friendships and have positive social interactions with peers. Understanding how post-institutionalized children interact with unfamiliar peers and the factors that predict the quality of these interactions may shed light on the processes contributing to the persistent, often increasing social deficits seen in post-institutionalized children. In this study, one child (either post-institutionalized or non-adopted; the "target") interacted with another non-adopted child (the "peer"; N=58 dyads, M age=9.65years) through a series of competitive and cooperative games during which interaction quality and affect of each participant were coded. Three saliva samples were also collected from each participant to measure cortisol production across the session. No group differences in behavior, affect, or cortisol were found. However, non-adopted target children's affect was positively associated with their peers' affect and negatively associated with peers' change in cortisol across the session, while post-institutionalized target children's affect was not associated with their peers' affect or cortisol. Thus, future interventions may want to promote social skills in children exposed to early adversity by focusing on dyadic social contingencies rather than individual behavior.

A multi-factorial perspective on ADHD and ODD in school-aged children: What is the role of cognitive regulation, temperament, and parental support?

ABSTRACTIntroduction: It is well established that attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a disorder of self-regulation. As such, ADHD is associated with disturbed cognitive regulation, extreme temperament traits, and deficient extrinsic regulation such as parenting. Despite these associations, cognitive regulation, temperament, and parenting have not previously been examined simultaneously in relation to ADHD symptoms in school-aged children. To bridge this gap of knowledge, we examined effects of these important aspects of self-regulation on symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity/impulsivity, and comorbid symptoms of oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) in children with and without a diagnosis of ADHD.Method: The sample consisted of 77 children aged 8 to 12 years (~40% had a diagnosis of ADHD). We assessed cognitive regulation (i.e., complex inhibition and working memory) during a lab visit and parents rated child temperament (negative affect, surgency, and effortful control) and parental support. Parents and teachers rated ADHD and ODD symptoms in the child. We performed continuous analyses, informed by a dimensional perspective on ADHD.Results: Working memory contributed independently to inattention (β = −.19, p < .05). Effortful control contributed independently to inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity (βs = −.50 and −.49, ps < .01). Negative affect contributed to ODD symptoms as moderated by parental support (β = .58, p < .01). Specifically, for children who received lower levels of parental support there was a significant positive association between negative affect and ODD symptoms.Conclusions: The results propose that both cognitive regulation and effortful control influence ADHD symptoms. Moreover, different factors seem to be involved in ADHD and ODD, with regulatory deficits specifically related to ADHD symptoms, and elevated negative affect specifically related to ODD symptoms. Interestingly, parenting moderated the relationship between negative affect and ODD symptoms, with a suggested protective effect of high parental support for children with high levels of negative affect.

Invalidating Caregiving Environments, Specific Emotion Regulation Deficits, and Non-suicidal Self-injury.

This study examined the indirect effects of distinct aspects of invalidating caregiving environments (i.e., paternal maltreatment, maternal maltreatment, and perceived alienation) on non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) via six specific emotion regulation difficulties. We hypothesized that specific emotion regulation deficits would mediate associations between invalidating environments and NSSI. Participants included 114 young adults (57 self-injurers; 57 age- and sex-matched comparison participants) aged 17-25years. Three parallel mediation models tested hypotheses. Results showed that maternal maltreatment, paternal maltreatment, and perceived alienation indirectly predicted NSSI through poor emotional clarity. Maternal maltreatment uniquely predicted NSSI through limited access to regulation strategies. Lastly, maternal maltreatment and perceived alienation were both linked to greater difficulties engaging in goal-directed behavior during emotional upsets; however, contrary to hypotheses, this particular deficit was associated with decreased odds of engaging in NSSI. Findings illustrate how different aspects of invalidating environments and specific emotion regulation deficits may be implicated in NSSI engagement.

Traumatic brain injury and social competence among young male offenders

Purpose: To investigate the prevalence of traumatic brain injury (TBI) among young incarcerated males and determine the extent of deficits in behavioural regulation, aggression, hopelessness, and perceived social support, compared to a control group of non-incarcerated males.Methods: Sixty-two young offenders and 58 university-based, gender-matched controls agreed to take part. We collected information on criminal history, risk taking behaviour, drug and alcohol abuse, and mental illness. In addition, we employed measures of brain injury, hopelessness, behavioural regulation, aggression, and perceived social support.Results: Just over 87% (n = 54) of offenders exhibited some level of TBI with over 31% (n = 17) reporting six or more injuries. Offenders with TBI exhibited poorer behavioural control (p < 0.001; M = 66.01 vs. M = 51.33; 95% CI –19.08 to –11.76), higher levels of aggression (p < 0.001; M = 101.19 vs. M = 69.39; 95% CI –38.31 to –27.17), and higher levels of hopelessness (p < 0.001; M = 5.65 vs. M = 2.55) when compared to controls with TBI. Severity of TBI correlated positively with behavioural regulation, aggression, and hopelessness.Conclusions: Greater recognition of the presence and consequences of TBI within the custodial estate is necessary if the needs of young offenders are to be adequately met. Young offenders with TBI experience heightened vulnerability and need rehabilitative input to support their time in prison and on their return to society.Implications for rehabilitationThe presence of TBI is under reported within offending populations, with many young offenders lacking awareness of their injury or its implications on their health and behaviour.Healthcare staff within the custodial estate should be trained to screen and assess cognitive, behavioural and emotional deficits which have arisen following TBI.Greater recognition of TBI within the custodial estate could improve the targeting of deficits and lead to rehabilitation programmes which address behavioural regulation difficulties.Rehabilitation of TBI deficits within, and on release from prison, has the potential to help reduce recidivism, leading to reduced costs for the criminal justice system and improved quality of life for young men.

Construct Validity Of Rorschach Space Responses

Background: The diagnostic meaning of the Space response, a Rorschach variable, is far from established. Previous studies on Rorschach Space responses suggested that different figure-ground relationships, shown in the three subtypes of Space responses (Integration, Reversal, and Fusion), could indicate different psychological processes. Objective: The aim of the current study was to investigate the construct validity of Space responses in a nonclinical sample by exploring the association of the three different types of Space responses with (a) the observer-rated motor, emotional, and cognitive components of aggression; and (b) the direction and emotional regulation of aggression in socially frustrating situations. Methods: The Rorschach Inkblot Method and the Rosenzweig Picture-Frustration Study were administered to 151 volunteers from a nonclinical community sample. The Aggression Questionnaire was administered as an observer-rated version to the participants’ mothers. Correlation analyses were performed to investigate the associations between the three different Space responses, the scores reported on the Rosenzweig Picture-Frustration Study, and the observer-reported scores on the Aggression Questionnaire. Conclusion: This study offers support for differentiating the three types of mutually exclusive Space responses. Space reversal responses were found to be indicative of a propensity to direct aggression outward in the context of frustrating interpersonal situations, whereas Space fusion responses positively correlated with a greater amount of anger feelings and hostile thoughts associated with a deficit in anger and emotional regulation that may contribute to impair reality testing. As with previous studies, no association between S integration responses and anger or aggression was observed.