Mentalizing abilities mediate the impact of the basic social perception on negative symptoms in patients with schizophrenia

I don’t understand how I feel: mediating role of impaired self-mentalizing in the relationship between childhood adversity and psychosis spectrum experiences

“…While some evidence suggests that high positive and negative schizotypy dimensions are linked to deficits in emotional awareness and regulation ( 70 ), given the lack of clear grounding on the differential contributions of self-mentalizing factors versus other-mentalizing in schizotypy, and that most mentalization research in psychosis has only focused on other-mentalization, the study is exploratory regarding self-mentalization. For other-mentalization, we expected that the associations with schizotypy dimensions in this nonclinical sample would be aligned with previous research (i.e., negatively associated with other-mentalization) ( 36 , 44 , 45 , 47 , 71 , 72 ), albeit at an attenuated level. Next, we expected that self- and other-mentalization would mediate the association between childhood maltreatment and all schizotypy dimensions, PLE and paranoia.…”

“…To date, mentalization has been operationalized primarily using various Theory of Mind tasks, which overall evaluate other-mentalizing. These studies support (other-) mentalizing as a mediator of childhood neglect and psychosis symptoms ( 47 ), of trauma/expressed emotion and schizotypal symptoms ( 72 ) and have even found that (other-) mentalizing fully mediates the association between social perception difficulties and negative symptoms ( 71 ). Although role reversal and its impact on other-mentalizing has not been examined previously, one may speculate that assuming parental responsibilities and providing emotional support to the parent from a young age might subserve the development of an increased capacity to think about and understand other’s emotions and needs (i.e., other-mentalizing) and this, in turn, may increase one’s curiosity and openness to the world (i.e., diminished negative schizotypy).…”