Emotional tone in young adolescents’ close relationships and its association with deliberate self-harm

Abstract

Previous research has shown that a less positive emotional tone in adolescents' relationships to parents, but not in their relationships to peers, predicts more of behaviour problems and substance use. The purpose of the present study was to replicate these findings, and to extend this research to deliberate self-harm. In a first study with a variable-oriented approach, correlations were analysed between emotional tone in close relationships and a number of behaviour problems. The main results showed that deliberate self-harm among girls, as well as conduct problems, hyperactivity, aggressive behaviour, and the use of alcohol, were more strongly associated with poor emotional relations to their parents than with poor emotional relations to friends. In a second study, a person-oriented approach was used to investigate girls' profiles of emotional tone in close relationships by means of cluster analysis, and to compare the clusters on measures of deliberate self-harm. The analysis led to the identification of five clusters; of these, deliberate self-harm was most frequent in a cluster of girls who reported poor emotional relations to parents in combination with good emotional relations to friends. Self-harm was also frequent in a cluster of girls characterized by poor emotional relations to both parents and friends. The results are discussed in terms of good emotional relations to friends not necessarily serving as a protective factor against emotional and behavioural problems, and the methodological value of a person-oriented approach as a complement to a traditional variable-oriented approach. Key words: Emotional tone, close relationships, deliberate self-harm, adolescents, behaviour problems, personoriented approachMuch evidence indicates that the quality of people's close relationships (parents, friends, romantic partners, etc.) is significantly associated with their health and well-being (e.g., Berscheid & Reis, 1998;Ryff, 1995). The nature of an individual's close relationships, however, changes during the life course. Whereas parents are primary sources of intimacy and support in childhood, and remain important also during adolescence, friends become increasingly important in middle

Emotion dysregulation mediates the influence of relationship difficulties on non-suicidal self-injury behavior in young adults

“…Poor quality parent-child relationships characterized by a number of invalidating relational characteristics have been linked with NSSI across multiple adolescent and young adult community samples (Gratz et al, 2002;Claes et al, 2004;Gratz, 2006;Wedig and Nock, 2007;Bjärehead and Lundh, 2008;Hilt et al, 2008;Yates et al, 2008;Crowell et al, 2009b;Lundh et al, 2009;Bureau et al, 2010). Researchers have also demonstrated links between negative family environments and lapses in emotion regulating capacities.…”

“…The limited research regarding quality of peer relationships and NSSI specifically demonstrate similar results. Lundh et al (2009) showed that peer relationships characterized by poor emotional tone were correlated with a greater NSSI frequency for both boys and girls in a sample of 992 adolescents. Similarly, Hilt et al (2008) found that girls reporting poor communication with their peers were more likely to engage in NSSI when also exposed to peer victimization in a sample of 94 female middle and high school students.…”

“…For example, Lundh et al (2009) examined correlations between NSSI and emotional tone in close relationships with parents and peers. The authors found that the magnitude of correlations with NSSI was stronger for poor parent-child relationships than for peer relationships.…”

“…Given the risks faced by individuals who engage in NSSI, a great deal of research has focused on identifying risk factors associated with the behavior. The influence of both parent and peer relationships has been investigated extensively in association with NSSI engagement, based on their importance for development during adolescence and early adulthood (Lundh et al, 2009;Bureau et al, 2010;Heilbron and Prinstein, 2010). However, the majority of existing research in this area has addressed parent and peer related influences separately, thus, additional study is needed to fully understand their relative influences in predicting NSSI behavior.…”

Mentalization-Based Treatment for Concurrent Borderline Personality Disorder and Substance Use Disorder: A Randomized Controlled Feasibility Study

“…The frequency of deliberate self-harm behaviour was investigated using the short version of the self-report scale Deliberate Self-Harm Inventory (DSHI-9) [46] in a Swedish translation that has shown satisfactory reliability [47].…”