scholarly journals Burnout, Attachment and Mentalization in Nursing Students and Nurse Professionals

Healthcare ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 1576
Author(s):  
Giulia Bordoagni ◽  
Edita Fino ◽  
Alessandro Agostini

(1) Background. In caretaking professions, attachment style and mentalization capacities are essential factors for establishing an effective caretaker–patient relationship and for buffering burnout. While attachment avoidance and dependency are considered risk factors for burnout, impairment in mentalization capacity is associated with psychological distress and ineffective emotion regulation. (2) Objective: Evaluating the attachment style and mentalization capacity in nurse professionals and nursing students. We further investigated the impact of these factors on burnout in professional nurses. (3) Method: 94 nursing students and 94 controls and 34 professional nurses completed the Attachment Style Questionnaire (ASQ) and the Reflective Functioning Questionnaire (RFQ). For professional nurses, the Maslach’s Burnout Inventory (MBI) was also administered. (4) Results: Nursing students exhibited lower scores in secure attachment and higher scores in anxiety over relationships compared to controls while no difference in mentalization capacity was found between both groups. Importantly, attachment anxiety resulted a significant predictor of burnout in professional nurses. (5) Conclusions: Nursing students might compensate their attachment insecurity with high mentalization. Attachment security may play a protective role against burnout in the professional nurses. Education programs aimed at enhancing mentalizing abilities might facilitate nursing students’ entrance in the forthcoming clinical environment and practice. Implementing training strategies based on attachment theory may contribute to burnout prevention in nurse professionals.

Author(s):  
Antigonos Sochos ◽  
Sadia Aleem

Abstract Background Previous clinical and theoretical work supports the idea that parental attachment style and complicated grief affect young persons’ mental health, but empirical research investigating their impact on young person’s adjustment to bereavement is lacking. Objective This study investigated the impact of parental attachment style and complicated grief on young person’s adjustment to bereavement. It was hypothesised that a) parental attachment anxiety, avoidance, and complicated grief would moderate the link between bereavement experience and psychological distress in young persons and b) parental attachment style would moderate the link between parental complicated grief and psychological distress experienced by bereaved young persons. Method This was a questionnaire-based case control study, involving two participant groups: 133 parents of young persons who had experienced the loss of the loved one and 101 parents of young persons with no bereavement experience. Results Bereaved young persons experienced greater externalising and internalising problems than the non-bereaved only when they were raised by an anxiously attached parent, but when parental attachment anxiety was low, bereaved children had fewer problems than the non-bereaved. When parental attachment avoidance was low, bereaved children also had fewer externalising problems than the non-bereaved. Among the bereaved, high levels of parental attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance amplified the link between parental complicated grief and child post-traumatic stress, while in the presence of low parental anxiety, complicated grief was negatively associated with an immediate distressing response and numbing-dissociative symptomatology. Conclusions Psychological vulnerability in bereaved young persons was associated with an insecure parental attachment style.


2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (6) ◽  
pp. 523-560
Author(s):  
Ottilia Klipsch ◽  
Henning Schauenburg ◽  
Christoph Nikendei ◽  
Cord Benecke ◽  
Ulrike Dinger

Introduction: Given the heterogeneity of results in the attentional bias to threatening information in patients with panic disorder, we investigated the attentional bias toward threat and the moderating effect of attachment styles in a female-only sample of panic patients and a nonclinical control group. Methods: Female panic patients (n = 47) were compared to a female control group (n = 47) using a modified Dot Probe Task with body-related and interpersonal threat as well as attachment positive words. Results: An attentional bias toward threat words was not replicated. Furthermore, there was no moderation effect on attentional bias by attachment styles. However, high attachment avoidance was associated with faster reaction times (RT) in attachment positive compared to attachment threat trials in both groups. In the patient group, attachment anxiety was associated with faster RT in panic threat trials compared to attachment positive trials. Anxiously attached controls reacted faster to attachment positive vs. attachment threat trials. Discussion: No attentional bias was found in the present study. However, the findings suggest that attachment avoidance and attachment anxiety differently influence attention responses to trials that include different emotional stimuli in clinical and nonclinical, female participants. Attachment insecurity may modify attention when processing trials including both, threat and positive stimuli.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zara Brodie ◽  
Karen Goodall ◽  
Stephen Darling ◽  
Chris McVittie

Variation in how individuals experience and express anger has been linked to their attachment style, particularly in close interpersonal contexts. However, little research has investigated attachment-related differences in anger and aggression in non-relational settings. This multi-method investigation reports two studies. The first investigated associations between adult attachment dimensions (anxiety and avoidance) in 270 participants. The second describes a lab-based anger provocation task, based on a modified version of the Taylor Aggression Paradigm, which examined associations between attachment dimensions and pre-post test change in self-reported anger, physiological responses, anger suppression and aggressive responding (N = 77). Results from study 1 indicate that attachment anxiety was a significant independent predictor of trait anger, while attachment avoidance was not. There were no significant interaction effects, suggesting distinct effects of attachment dimensions on anger. In study 2, attachment avoidance was negatively related to anger change scores from baseline to post-provocation and positively to anger suppression (measured by the discrepancy between self-report and physiological measures). Attachment anxiety was positively associated with aggressive responding. In summary, the findings support the high arousal-low control style previously associated with attachment anxiety, evidenced by elevated trait anger and higher aggressive responding. They also align with previous studies that support an association between attachment avoidance and emotion suppression, suggesting that the attachment framework can be usefully extended to understand anger and aggression in non-relational contexts.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (19) ◽  
pp. 10748
Author(s):  
Nayara Malheiros Caruzzo ◽  
João Ricardo Nickenig Vissoci ◽  
Andressa Ribeiro Contreira ◽  
Aryelle Malheiros Caruzzo ◽  
Lenamar Fiorese

For a long time, competitive sport has focused only on aspects related to performance. However, studies in social psychology have indicated the importance of focusing on the human development of athletes, which can occur through training environments that promote psychological well-being. Thus, this study aimed to analyze the impact of the coach-athlete attachment style, mediated by the coach’s leadership style, on the mental toughness of athletes in the world beach volleyball context. Elite beach volleyball athletes (n = 65), participants of the World Tour 2018, were part of the study. The Coach-Athlete Attachment Scale (CAAS), Mental Toughness Index (MTI) and Leadership Scale for Sport (LSS) were used as instruments. For data analyses we used polychoric correlation and a bias-corrected factor score path analysis. Path analysis showed that perceived secure attachment was positively associated with athletes’ mental toughness (0.24; 0.31; 0.25), but leadership styles did not mediate this relationship. For athletes with anxious attachment profiles, the perception of autocratic leadership style was associated with athletes’ mental toughness (1.01; p = 0.03), when their interaction style is focused on coaching-instruction. It concludes that the secure attachment relationship can bring increases in levels of athletic mental toughness, whereas for athletes with insecure attachment, the autocratic style was shown to be associated with the highest levels of mental toughness.


2018 ◽  
Vol 123 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-251
Author(s):  
Chieko Fujisaki

AEON-HO (Altering emotional organization-holistic operation) contains methods of Naikan therapy and mindfulness. Naikan and mindfulness are originally from Buddhism tradition, and they have a high affinity. AEON-HO was conceptualized to improve attachment issues and the growth of self-actualization, because Naikan and mindfulness are known to be effective for attachment issues but partially if they are used independently. Naikan can approach to attachment avoidance, while mindfulness can approach to attachment anxiety. The primary purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of AEON-HO on attachment styles, self-actualization, and depression by using “attachment style scale the Experiences in Close Relationships inventory–the generalized–other–version (ECR-GO),” “self-actualization scale” translated to Japanese, and “center for epidemiologic studies for depression scale.” Participants have taken these three psychological questionnaires before and after the eight-week program of AEON-HO, and the results of scales were compared. Participants were 36 adults with a mean age of 49 years ( SD = 3.9). Changes in two attachment styles, anxiety and avoidance and depressive state, were observed between pre- and posttest, while there were no significant changes in self-actualization. However, attachment anxiety and self-actualization were correlated negatively in pre- and posttest, while attachment avoidance and self-actualization were correlated negatively only in pretest.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaole Ma ◽  
Weihua Zhao ◽  
Ruixue Luo ◽  
Feng Zhou ◽  
Yayuan Geng ◽  
...  

AbstractWe interact socially and form bonds with others because such experiences are rewarding. However, an insecure attachment style or social anxiety can reduce these rewarding effects. The neuropeptide oxytocin (OXT) may facilitate social interactions either by increasing their rewarding experience or by attenuating anxiety, although effects can be sex- and attachment-style dependent. In this study, 64 pairs of same-sex friends completed a social sharing paradigm in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, between-subject design with one friend inside an MRI scanner and the other in a remote behavioral testing room. In this way we could examine whether intranasal-OXT differentially modulated the emotional impact of social sharing and associated neural processing. Additionally, we investigated if OXT effects were modulated by sex and attachment style. Results showed that in women, but not men, OXT increased ratings for sharing stimuli with their friend but not with a stranger, particularly in the friend in the scanner. Corresponding neuroimaging results showed that OXT decreased both amygdala and insula activity as well as their functional connectivity in women when they shared with friends but had the opposite effect in men. On the other hand, OXT did not enhance responses in brain reward circuitry. In the PLC treated group amygdala responses in women when they shared pictures with their friend were positively associated with attachment anxiety and OXT uncoupled this. Our findings demonstrate that OXT facilitates the impact of sharing positive experiences with others in women, but not men, and that this is associated with differential effects on the amygdala and insula and their functional connections. Furthermore, OXT particularly reduced increased amygdala responses during sharing in individuals with higher attachment anxiety. Thus, OXT effects in this context may be due more to reduced anxiety when sharing with a friend than to enhanced social reward.


2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Santascoy ◽  
Sara E. Burke ◽  
John F. Dovidio

Two studies investigated the hypothesis that because individuals who are high on attachment avoidance tend to be disinterested in warmth in interpersonal relationships, they may respond less favorably to groups perceived as warm, attenuating the generally positive association between perceived warmth and favorable evaluation of a group. In Study 1, participants responded to groups representing the four quadrants based on warmth and competence identified by the stereotype content model (e.g., White people, homeless people). On average, people evaluated groups higher in stereotypical warmth more positively. However, as predicted, this effect was significantly weaker among participants higher in attachment avoidance. No effect was found for attachment anxiety. Study 2, in which the perceived warmth of a fictitious group was experimentally manipulated, conceptually replicated the effect for attachment avoidance. Understanding how attachment avoidance may attenuate favorable attitudes toward socially warm groups can help illuminate broader processes of intergroup relations.


2012 ◽  
Vol 111 (1) ◽  
pp. 281-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert S. Weisskirch

Cell phones have become important communication media for individuals in romantic relationships. The frequency of and methods used for communication may vary by adults' style of romantic attachment. Female university students ( N = 31) currently in romantic relationships responded to a questionnaire. They estimated the frequency of calls and text messages received from and made to their romantic partners and completed the Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised instrument, a measure of attachment anxiety and avoidance. Also, the participants reviewed their cell phones' memories and provided accurate frequency of communication to and from the romantic partner. Attachment anxiety was associated with more estimated text messages sent to and received from the romantic partners and actual text messages sent to and received from the romantic partners. Attachment avoidance was associated ( r = −.38) with fewer estimated calls made to the romantic partners and fewer actual calls made to the romantic partners ( r = −.34).


2011 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 316-329 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Gassin ◽  
Gregory J. Lengel

The current project consists of two studies assessing the relationship between two attachment dimensions (anxiety and avoidance) and forgiveness in the context of bereavement. Using these two dimensions, the authors explore whether or not general attachment style and attachment to a deceased person in particular predict the degree to which one will forgive that individual. While most previous studies of extending forgiveness to living individuals suggest attachment anxiety is a more robust predictor of forgiveness, the current studies point to attachment avoidance as a more reliable predictor. The authors consider developmental and cultural factors in explaining the results and note implications for pastors and therapists.


2012 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Loren C. King ◽  
Paul D. Werner

This research tested hypotheses concerning attachment, social support, and grief responses to the loss of animal companionship. Participants whose companion cat or dog had recently died ( N = 429) completed the Attachment Style Questionnaire, the Inventory of Complicated Grief, and the Multidimensional Health Profile-Psychosocial Functioning questionnaires. Both attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance were found to be positively associated with respondents' grief, depression, anxiety, and somatic symptoms. Social support was found to be negatively associated with these outcomes as well as with attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance. In multiple regression analyses, attachment anxiety incrementally predicted grief, anxiety and somatic symptoms, attachment avoidance incrementally predicted grief and depression, and social support incrementally predicted all outcomes. Interaction effects of attachment and social support in relation to outcomes were not found. The present study's implications and limitations are discussed, as are directions for future research.


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