2022-老司机传媒 2023 Grant in Aid of Research
A model of adult attachment and emerging adult mental health: The roles of parental environment, parental psychopathology, trauma, and social support.
Christiana Atkins
According to attachment theory our early experiences form the basis of our cognitive and emotional working models of the world. Our attachment styles develop early childhood and remain relatively stable throughout adulthood, which impacts our lifetime relational patterns. A number of different factors have been established by previous research to impact our later adult psychological well-being factors such as lower levels of depression, anxiety, and stress. Parent-child relationship quality in childhood, experiences of early trauma, and parental depression in childhood have all been associated in previous research to later experiences of adult depression, anxiety, and stress. Emerging adulthood is a time period of increased vulnerability to various mental health issues and it is a common time for the onset of various psychiatric conditions. The increased vulnerability and onset of conditions makes emerging adulthood a critical time period for intervention. Our early experiences likely shape our view and way of relating in the world all the way from childhood into adulthood. The purpose of the proposed study is to develop a theoretical model based on theory, previous research, and clinical experiences to better explain the associations between childhood experiences during formative years and their impact on emerging adult psychological well-being and functioning. The proposed study seeks to examine established factors of retrospective memories of parent-child relationship quality, parental depression, and trauma exposure, in the context of adult attachment style and its associations with emerging adult depression, anxiety, and stress.