| Abstract [eng] |
Valašimaitė, A. (2024). The relationship between adverse childhood experiences, mentalization and personality functioning in young adults. Vilnius: Vilnius University, p. 62. Disruptions in personality functioning, encompassing both self and interpersonal domains, can result as varying degrees of personality pathology, with young adulthood being a particularly sensitive period for the onset of mental disorders. Both empirical research and theoretical perspectives reveal the significance of adverse (traumatic) childhood experiences and mentalization in the context of personality functioning. Therefore, it is essential to analyze the potential relationships between these constructs in a non-clinical sample of young adults to better understand the mechanisms associated with personality disturbances. The aim of this study is to evaluate the relationships between adverse childhood experiences, mentalization, and personality functioning in young adults. 288 young adults aged 18-30 years (241 females, 45 males, 2 indicated ,,other“) participated in the study. The Level of Personality Functioning Scale Brief Form 2.0 was used to assess young adults' level of personality functioning. Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Questionnaire was used to assess adverse childhood experiences. The Mentalization Scale (MentS) and the Brief‐Mentalized Affectivity scale (B‐MAS) were used to assess mentalizing abilities. The results showed that adverse childhood experiences are partly related to mentalising abilities (greater experience of physical neglect is associated with weaker total mentalising and self-related mentalising abilities in young adulthood, higher experience of emotional neglect is associated with weaker self-related mentalising abilities and poorer emotional expression in young adulthood, higher experience of emotional violence is associated with better other-related mentalizing in young adulthood). Higher experience of adverse childhood experiences (except physical and sexual abuse) and weaker mentalising abilities (most notably self-related mentalising) are associated with poorer personality functioning in young adulthood, both in the self and in the interpersonal domain. Regression analyses revealed that young adults' experience of adverse childhood experiences and mentalisation predict the level of personality functioning: higher experience of emotional neglect, lower self-related mentalisation and emotion processing are the best predictors of higher personality impairment. Mediational analyses have shown that self-related mentalizing and emotion expressing are partial mediators between the experience of emotional neglect in childhood and level of personality functioning in young adulthood. |
