Herron Shona Joyce, Sani Fabio
Department of Clinical Psychology, University College London, London, UK.
School of Social Sciences (Psychology), University of Dundee, Dundee, UK.
J Ment Health. 2022 Apr;31(2):188-195. doi: 10.1080/09638237.2021.1922645. Epub 2021 May 19.
Persistent feelings of emptiness, while poorly understood, characterise a range of mental health difficulties.
To investigate the meaning of emptiness from the perspective of those with lived experience.
240 participants detailed their experiences of emptiness in a survey. Inductive thematic analysis was performed to produce a detailed description of emptiness and a definition of its typical manifestation. In a follow up survey, 178 individuals with lived experience of emptiness rated the accuracy of this definition.
Nine components of emptiness were identified. These were used to produce a definition of the typical manifestation of emptiness, which highlighted a sense of going through life mechanically, purposelessly and numbly, with a psychological and bodily felt inner void, together with a sense of disconnectedness from others, and of not contributing to an unchanged but distant and remote world. Participants in the second survey judged this definition as highly accurate.
First person accounts of emptiness point to an integrated experience concerning the relationship between the self, others, and the external world more generally. Therefore, emptiness can be conceptualised as an ; a background orientation structuring the way in which the self relates to the interpersonal and impersonal world.
尽管人们对持续的空虚感了解甚少，但它却是一系列心理健康问题的特征。
从有过相关经历的人的角度调查空虚的含义。
240名参与者在一项调查中详细描述了他们的空虚经历。进行归纳主题分析以详细描述空虚及其典型表现的定义。在后续调查中，178名有过空虚经历的个体对该定义的准确性进行了评分。
确定了空虚的九个组成部分。这些被用于给出空虚典型表现的定义，该定义强调了一种机械、无目的和麻木地度过生活的感觉，伴有心理和身体上感受到的内心空虚，以及与他人的脱节感，和对一个不变但遥远且疏远的世界没有贡献的感觉。第二次调查的参与者认为这个定义非常准确。
关于空虚的第一人称叙述指向了一种关于自我、他人以及更广泛的外部世界之间关系的综合体验。因此，空虚可以被概念化为一种；一种构建自我与人际和非人际世界关系方式的背景取向。
