Corrigendum: Paradoxes in borderline emotional dysregulation in adolescence: influence of parenting, stressful life events, and attachment.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2021.735615.].

Four attachment-based categories of emotion regulation in adolescent psychic troubles.

Introduction: Emotion regulation is altered in many psychiatric disorders in adolescence, but the understanding of mechanisms that underlie this alteration is still poor. Methods: The PERCEPT study explores alexithymia, empathy, facial emotion recognition (FER) and defence mechanisms in a sample of adolescents in psychiatric care (n = 61, 74% of girls, mean age = 15.03 y.o.), in relation with participants' attachment styles. Results: Results revealed correlations between attachment dimensions and all of the emotion regulation variables, suggesting that attachment modalities have functional links with emotional regulation at its different levels: FER accuracy was inversely correlated with avoidant attachment, while affective empathy, difficulty in identifying feelings (alexithymia) and immature as well as neurotic defence mechanisms were positively correlated with anxious attachment. Moreover, attachment categories delineated distinct emotional perception profiles. In particular, preoccupied attachment included adolescents with the highest levels of facial emotion perception (sensitivity and accuracy) and of affective empathy, whereas detached attachment included adolescents with the lowest levels of these variables. Neurotic defence mechanisms and difficulty to identify feelings were correlated with preoccupied attachment; immature defence mechanisms and difficulty to describe feelings to others characterized fearful attachment. Discussion: These results suggest that attachment categories underlie emotion regulation processes in psychiatric disorders in adolescence. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.

Facteurs D'adversité Chez des Adolescents Issus de Milieu Aisé Hospitalisés en Psychiatrie.

Malgré l'enjeu majeur de santé publique qu'elles représentent, les maltraitances infantiles, et particulièrement les négligences, restent sous-estimées en psychiatrie, tant dans leur prévalence que leur impact sur la santé. De plus, le phénomène de maltraitance reste habituellement associé à un fort déterminisme socio-culturel et est très peu évalué dans les catégories sociales aisées. Cette étude mesure la prévalence et l'impact sur l'état médical des facteurs d'adversité précoce - maltraitances (abus et négligences) et événements de vie (divorce, séparations précoces, antécédents familiaux de maladie psychiatrique) - dans une population d'adolescents hospitalisés en psychiatrie et issus de milieux aisés, afin d'en évaluer l'ampleur et l'impact. Les résultats montrent l'ampleur et le cumul des facteurs d'adversité, incluant des fréquences élevées de maltraitances (64.8%), d'événements de vie difficile (dont 29.7% de séparations précoces et 36.4% de troubles psychiatriques familiaux). Ils soutiennent ainsi l'idée d'une sous-estimation importante de ces phénomènes en population générale et en psychiatrie, et ce, notamment dans les catégories sociales aisées. Les maltraitances sont associées à la gravité médicale (niveau de fonctionnement global, nombre et durée d'hospitalisation). Les abus sont particulièrement corrélés au nombre d'hospitalisations, alors que les négligences semblent également impacter leur durée et le niveau de gravité médicale de l'adolescent. Cette étude invite à une évaluation systématique des phénomènes d'adversité en pédopsychiatrie, quel que soit le contexte environnemental du patient, et à renforcer les prises en charge familiales ainsi que la prévention des abus et négligences.

Paradoxes in Borderline Emotional Dysregulation in Adolescence: Influence of Parenting, Stressful Life Events, and Attachment.

Introduction: Borderline personality disorder (BPD) in adolescents is characterized by emotional dysregulation, insecure attachment, a history of stressful life events (SLEs) as well as dysfunctional parent-child interactions. The respective contribution of each of these factors on BPD affective symptoms is not yet clear. The purpose of this study is to assess the distinct impact of parental adversity and SLEs on BPD affective symptoms and the role of attachment and alexithymia in such emotional processes. Method: This study explored parental dysfunction and SLEs as predictors of affective symptoms of BPD and of attachment insecurity in BPD adolescents (n = 85) and healthy controls (n = 84) aged 13-19 years from the European Research Network on BPD. The links between adversity and BPD symptoms were also investigated by emotional dysregulation assessment, as measured by alexithymia and hopelessness. Results: Dysfunctional parental interactions were linked to affective symptoms, hopelessness, and anxious attachment in healthy controls but not in BPD. Cumulative SLEs were positively correlated with affective symptoms and avoidant attachment in the control group but negatively correlated with both these variables in BPD. Multivariate regression analysis revealed that, in BPD, affective symptoms were independent of dysfunctional parenting but depended on attachment, whereas in controls, a maternal affectionless control style directly predicted affective symptoms. Moreover, increasing numbers of SLEs reduced affective symptoms in BPD, independently of parental interactions or attachment, and were associated with growing use of operative thinking. Discussion: BPD patients showed paradoxical emotional reactions: there was no increase of hopelessness and affective symptoms with an increased parental dysfunction, but a decrease in affective symptoms and hopelessness with cumulative SLE. Two pathways arose, one involving attachment as an emotional dysregulation process for parent-child interactions and a second one for SLE, with a more direct pathway to affective symptoms, independent of attachment but dependent on early interactions, and involving alexithymia. In summary, adversity factors have distinct effects in BPD, and attachment is partly accountable for affective symptoms independently of adversity. Our results suggest that in highly insecure conditions, cumulative adversity may produce paradoxical effects, including a lesser expression of affective symptoms and hopelessness.

Emotional intelligence, empathy and alexithymia in anorexia nervosa during adolescence.

PURPOSE: Socio-emotional difficulties have been observed on adult patients suffering from anorexia nervosa (AN). But researches with adolescents are scarce and non-congruent. The aim of this paper is to identify the socio-emotional difficulties that are encountered by AN during adolescence, and to isolate them from those encountered by control adolescents. METHOD: 41 AN and 38 control adolescents were assessed using the emotional quotient inventory by Bar-On, youth version (EQ-i: YV), the Toronto Alexithymia Questionnaire (TAS-20), the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), and anxiety and depression were controlled using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). RESULTS: Personal distress remains the main difference between the two groups, even when depression and anxiety are controlled. Intrapersonal difficulties are observed in the AN group, as well as alexithymic traits. CONCLUSION: Research on AN has to focus on the socio-emotional difficulties during adolescence, to properly identify which difficulties are linked to that life period, and which are a trait of AN. LEVEL III: Evidence obtained from well-designed cohort or case-control analytic studies, preferably from more than one center or research group.