Department of Psychology and Philosophy, Sam Houston State University, Campus Box 2447, Huntsville, TX 77341-2447, USA.
Department of Psychology, University of Houston, 4811 Calhoun Rd., Room 373, Houston, TX 77204, USA.
Compr Psychiatry. 2017 Oct;78:38-47. doi: 10.1016/j.comppsych.2017.07.002. Epub 2017 Jul 13.
Previous research has documented increased incidence of insecure attachment and theory of mind (ToM) deficits in individuals experiencing psychotic disorders. ToM has been theorized as a possible mediator of the relation between attachment and psychosis (Korver-Nieberg et al., 2014). The current study sought to extend this area of research to adolescents for the first time by examining adolescent-parent attachment and ToM in inpatient adolescents.
Participants were 362 inpatient adolescents and their parents; participants completed the Child Attachment Interview, Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition, Youth Self Report, and Child Behavior Checklist.
Bivariate correlations indicated that attachment coherence (a marker of security) was significantly and positively correlated with ToM abilities, and that low attachment coherence and poor ToM performance were each associated with increased youth- and parent-reported thought problems. Mediational models indicated that ToM mediated the relation between insecure attachment and thought problems according to both parent- and self-report.
The results of the current study provide support for a model in which impairments in ToM contribute to the frequently documented association between insecure attachment and emerging psychotic symptoms. Theoretical and clinical implications of these results are discussed, including the potential support for ToM-based interventions for early psychotic symptoms.
先前的研究记录了经历精神病障碍的个体中不安全依恋和心理理论（ToM）缺陷的发生率增加。ToM 被认为是依恋与精神病之间关系的一个可能的中介（Korver-Nieberg 等人，2014 年）。本研究首次尝试将这一研究领域扩展到青少年，通过检查住院青少年的青少年-父母依恋和 ToM。
参与者为 362 名住院青少年及其父母；参与者完成了儿童依恋访谈、社会认知评估电影、青少年自我报告和儿童行为检查表。
双变量相关分析表明，依恋连贯性（安全的标志）与 ToM 能力呈显著正相关，而低的依恋连贯性和较差的 ToM 表现都与增加的青少年和父母报告的思维问题相关。中介模型表明，根据父母和自我报告，ToM 中介了不安全依恋与思维问题之间的关系。
本研究的结果为 ToM 损伤导致不安全依恋与新兴精神病症状之间经常记录到的关联的模型提供了支持。讨论了这些结果的理论和临床意义，包括对基于 ToM 的干预早期精神病症状的潜在支持。
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