Hazlitt, Astra;
(2023)
Childhood Maltreatment and Schizotypy: The Mediating Role of Attachment Insecurity and Impaired Mentalizing.
Doctoral thesis (D.Clin.Psy), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
Aim: The relationship between childhood maltreatment and psychosis experiences is well-established, however gaps remain in our understanding of the mechanisms underlying this association. From a developmental perspective, childhood adversity is indicated to disrupt both attachment security and mentalizing abilities, which in turn appear to increase someone’s vulnerability to psychosis. This cross-sectional study aimed to investigate the combined mediating roles of insecure attachment and impaired mentalizing in the relationship between childhood maltreatment and schizotypy as a form of subclinical psychosis expression. Method: 1,696 adults were recruited from both clinical and community settings. Participants completed self-report questionnaires on retrospectively rated childhood abuse and neglect, adult attachment security, mentalizing, and schizotypal personality traits. Structural equation modeling was used to estimate the variable constructs and test the interactions between them. Results: The results revealed that attachment insecurity together with impaired mentalizing fully mediated the positive relationship between childhood maltreatment and schizotypal personality traits. Attachment and mentalizing were also found to be highly related processes. Conclusions: These findings suggest that childhood maltreatment contributes to the development and course of psychotic expression via its effect on attachment security and mentalizing as interacting psychological mechanisms. This has significant clinical implications for the use of psychosocial interventions aimed at increasing mentalizing capacity and attachment security, such as mentalization-based therapy (MBT), as a means of reducing the psychosis risk faced by survivors of child abuse or neglect.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | D.Clin.Psy |
| Title: | Childhood Maltreatment and Schizotypy: The Mediating Role of Attachment Insecurity and Impaired Mentalizing |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2023. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10176609 |
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