Browsing by Subject "cognitive schema"

The present thesis reviews studies on the relationship between a childhood trauma and a psychosis, and psychological factors that may mediate this relationship. Recent studies have connected childhood traumas to the psychosis and to the risk for psychosis. The studies are correlational and some of them have explored psychological factors that may mediate relation between childhood trauma and psychosis. Among these, studies have explored attachment, dissociation, emotion regulation, and cognitive schema as potential mediators. The data was collected in October 2019 from the PsycInfo, Google Scholar and PubMed databases. Nine studies were selected for this review, with the emphasis on quality of methods and recent publication. Three of these studies focused on the attachment quality and one of them also on dissociation. Dissociation alone was focused on three studies. One study focused on emotion regulation and two studies on cognitive schemas but one of them included also dissociation. The studies supported a view that anxiety and fearful attachment styles, emotion regulation, negative self-schemas and dissociation functioned as mediators between childhood traumatic experiences and psychosis. Dissociation has particularly a strong role. It was repeated as a mediator in several studies, sometimes even when the comorbid symptoms were controlled for. However, the results should be interpreted critically. All the studies, except one, were cross-sectional precluding any causal conclusions. Further studies need to be done. Future research should include longitudinal studies and there should be paid more attention to research methods.