Understanding the Relationship between Alexithymia and Self-Harm - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 4 Words: 1100 Downloads: 1 Date added: 2018/12/15 Category Psychology Essay Type Dissertation Level High school Tags: Behavior Essay Emotion Essay Did you like this example? I. Background and Rationale a) Introduction Self-injurious behaviors are a concern among young adults and require a better discernment of hazardous aspects and pathways to these occurrences (Anestis et al., 2009). These young adults predicate that their self-inflicted acts, involving low lethality methods such as burning skin or skin cuts, are not suicidal. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Understanding the Relationship between Alexithymia and Self-Harm" essay for you Create order Developmental psychopathology models have processes and proposed mechanisms through which hostile caregiving environments or childhood ill-treatment experiences can lead to engagement in non-suicidal acts (Roemer et al., 2009). Frameworks reiterating the foundations of the interpersonal rate of affectedness assumes that hostile caregiving environments and consequent insecure attachments are associated with slow development, this inhibits or stimulates dealing with emotional afflictions. b) Study Rationale Research which was done to determine insecure attachments, emotion regulation deficits, and non-suicidal self-injury have been limited and inconsistent. Well-developed theoretical and conceptual models (Hayes et al., 1996) should be the focus. There has been consistent evidence for destructive patterns of emotion regulation among self-injuring youth and greater self-reported emotional reactivity (Gratz, 2007) when subjected to stimuli. Self-injury is also found to be a means to regulate negative emotions. II. Discussion a) Attachment The role of attachment disorder is relatively established; the limitation is the scarcity of research in the specific attachment triggers that increase the vulnerability for self injury. there is less clarity on the specific attachment trigger which increases the vulnerability for self-injury. Higher attachment anxiety has been implicated among self-injuring adult psychiatric inpatients, but other research reported an association between withdrawn attachment and self-injury among individuals with personality disorder. Despite the growing interest in understanding the antecedents and risk factors connected to (NSSI), studies that examine both attachment disorder and emotion regulation difficulties are scarce. High self-esteem and the ability to adjust psychologically are firm indicators of positive emotional intelligence, whereas factors such as depression, distressing and harmful behavior are proponents of negative or low emotional intelligence (Hazan Shaver, 1987). There ex ists a strong positive correlation between emotional intelligence and mental challenges as evidenced by (Aleman swart, 2009), The positive quality of life brought about by higher emotional intelligence and consequently mental conditions such as psychopathology tend to develop among individuals due to low emotional intelligence. b) Theories Theories in behavioral patterns of psychopathology indicate the importance of problematic behavior functions (Fischer et al., 2004). NSSI is influenced by emotional personality, regulation and stimulation. Emotions which include frustration, anxiety, and anger tend to predate NSSI, which is usually followed by feelings of serenity and relief but leads to despair and disgust in the long run (Manwaring et al., 2006). In a study psychology setup, male prisoners with a history of self-violence were observed to determine the prevalence of emotional feedback about self-harm. When correlated with the control group, self-harm volunteers responded with a reduction in physiological stimulation as well as repugnant emotion to images of self-harm, contrary to neutral situations and injuries which are accidental. Individuals with emotional disorder are likely to cause bodily harm, and could be used to explain the susceptibility for those with high alexithymia attempt such acts (Bishop et al. , 2004). Several emotional therapy models have been designed to reduce the susceptibility to self-harm (Gratz, 2007) and, individuals that have been found to show emotional instability were said to be suffering from high alexithymia (Stasiewicz et al., 2012; Taylor, 2000) and be likely to use suppressed regulation techniques than positive strategies. Authors conclude that alexithymia is an acquired strategy to avert overwhelming emotions. According to Chapman and Brown (2006) prevention of emotion can be prevented through identification of self-harm as a channel for warding off feelings. Therefore, it is justified to state that the mechanism that sheds light on the relationship between alexithymia and self- harm is experiential prevention. Conclusively, it is concise to propose that low childhood attachments are a determining factor in the progression and development of alexithymia and self- harm as stated by Oskis et al, (2013) and Van der Kolk, Perry, and Herman (1991). Fina lly, poor childhood attachment is a causal factor in the development of alexithymia (Oskis et al, 2013) and self-harm (Van, Herman Perry, 1991). Identifying a feeling subscale of TAS20 is closely related to the fear of seclusion, following a study conducted by Oskis et al, (2013) on adolescents. It is a plausible assumption to indicate poor attachment as a subliminal reason for the preventive behavior noticed in individuals with a higher level of alexithymia and self-harming behaviors. III. Conclusion Despite the fact that many of these factors have been quantified and contrasted bilaterally in the literature, a bonding agent is lacking, to bind them together to fully grasp the mechanisms by which alexithymia might be related to self-harm (Chambers et al., 2009). The present review is directed towards a test model in which alexithymia separates them from self-harm. The dearth of reliable and concise evidence of the relationship between NSSI and alexithymia has left some of studies that evaluated the function of emotional response as well as the capacity to comprehend and show emotional states in adolescents who inflict self-harm. References D.J Lyddon, W Schreiber, Alford, (2006). Emotion working models of adult attachment. Psychology quarterly. Fink, E. L., Joiner, M. D. Smith, Anestis, (2009). Distress and Unregulated eating: The role of adverse urgency in clinical samples. Cognitive Therapy, 33, 390-397. Aderson. N. D.,Carmody J., Bishop, S.R., Lau, M., Shapiro, S., Carlson, L., et al., (2004) A An Operational definition proposed in clinical psychology and mindfulness: science practice, 11(3), 230-241. Gullone, G., Allen, N. B., Chambers, R., (2009). An integrative review. Emotional regulation mindfulness. Clinical Psychology Review, 29, 560-572 Fischer, S., Anderson, K. G., Smith, G. T. (2004). 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