Karyn Doba

Childhood maltreatment is a well-established transdiagnostic risk factor for psychopathology. Effective intervention requires a precise understanding of how distinct dimensions of adversity—neglect (deprivation) and abuse (threat)—uniquely shape emotion regulation. In a large, matched sample constructed using cardinality and optimal pair matching methods, we examined the differential associations between neglect, abuse, and their combination and a broad spectrum of emotion regulation difficulties and mental health outcomes including depression, anxiety, and suicide risk. Neglect was linked to a decreased use of regulatory strategies, reflecting a lack of essential developmental inputs. Abuse was associated with disrupted application of existing strategies, indicating interference with functional regulation. Critically, combined exposure to both neglect and abuse resulted in the most pervasive impairments across basic, cognitive, and interpersonal regulation. These findings support dimensional models of adversity and underscore the need for future research on trauma-specific interventions tailored to early-life experiences of threat and deprivation.

The Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) is one of the most used self-report measures of empathy, comprising 4 factors assessing both cognitive and affective empathy. Nowadays, three different French adaptations of this instrument co-exist. This research compares the three French adaptations of the IRI scale using both quantitative and qualitative evaluations. In Study 1, a French-speaking sample (N = 339) completed all three French IRI versions at 2-month time intervals in a counterbalanced order. In Study 2, the item wording of the three versions was evaluated by six independent professional translators. Study 1 assessed the items’ distribution, the scale’s factorial structure, the subscales’ internal consistency, and their correlations with alternative measures of empathy (the Empathy Quotient) and other clinically relevant indicators (anxiety, depression). These quantitative analyses highlighted that all three French adaptations can be used for research purposes. They all exhibit acceptable internal consistency, a factorial structure compliant with the 4-factor model originally proposed by Davis, as well as convergent and discriminant validity. However, by combining item quantitative analyses and translators’ judgments, we revealed some problematic items in each version. Taken together, the findings suggest that the French IRI adaptations by Guttman & Laporte (2000) and Braun et al. (2015) should be slightly preferred. To improve the overall quality of each French IRI version, we provide some recommendations about how to adapt problematic items.

Objective: The present study examined impairment in two main dimensions of mentalizing (self‐other and emotional‐cognitive) in patients with anorexia nervosa (AN) by combining self‐reported measures with performance‐based tasks.Method: Forty‐five patients with AN recruited from an eating disorder unit and 45 healthy controls (HCs) recruited from the general population completed the Mentalization Scale and the Movie for Assessment of Social Cognition.Results: The results revealed that in self‐reported evaluations of their mentalization process, patients with AN hypo‐mentalized about themselves and others' mental states. However, they used more hyper‐mentalizing than HCs when mentalizing others' emotional and cognitive mental states in performance‐based tasks. Finally, the severity of eating symptoms in patients with AN was associated with higher levels of perceived hypo‐mentalizing about their own mental states and lower levels of perceived hypo‐mentalizing of others' mental states. No associations were found between the severity of eating symptoms and mentalizing performance.Conclusions: This study emphasizes the importance of mentalizing impairment in patients with AN, which should be considered via a multidimensional approach that considers both emotional and cognitive dimensions and the ability to assess patients' competences.

Mother–infant synchrony is one of the most important processes in the development of socio‐affective competencies in children. While maternal abilities and psychopathology are related to maladaptive mother–infant synchrony, it is as yet unclear how maternal emotion regulation difficulties contribute to it. Based on a panel of behavioral indicators (i.e., gaze, vocal, and motor), the present study examined mother–infant synchrony at 6 months of age in a modified version of Ainsworth's Strange Situation (n = 72 dyads). Mother–infant interaction sequences were characterized by indicators of complexity (LZ complexity of joint behavioral sequences) and of synchronization quality (cross‐recurrence plot quantification). Results showed that mothers’ touch was greater in the reunion condition than in the initial condition. Mothers’ motor behaviors were associated with the global levels of infants’ behavioral involvement in the reunion condition, unlike the symmetrical influence observed between mothers and infants in the initial condition. Results show that maternal anxiety mediates the relationships between mothers’ emotion regulation difficulties and gaze, vocal, and motor synchrony between mothers and infants in the initial and reunion conditions. This study emphasizes the central role of maternal emotion regulation difficulties in the establishment of maladaptive synchrony and in the adjustments of maternal physical contacts with infants.

Sexual satisfaction is the most frequently studied sexual component of human sexuality related to its link with relationship satisfaction and stability (S. Sprecher & R. M. Cate, 2004. The handbook of sexuality in close relationships, pp. 235–256. Mahwah, NJ: Taylor & Francis). Previous studies have shown that sexual satisfaction is affected by personal, interpersonal, social and cultural variables, but few studies have considered the associations between these variables. The aim of this study was to evaluate a complex model of sexual satisfaction considering these various levels of variables and their associations. The study was conducted online and comprised 457 individuals in the final sample. The French version of the index of sexual satisfaction evaluated the level of sexual dissatisfaction. Personal, interpersonal, social and cultural variables were assessed with questionnaires and their associations were investigated with the partial least squares‐path method. The association between dyadic coping (positive and negative) and sexual dissatisfaction was mediated by relationship satisfaction. The model also showed three sequential mediations through dyadic coping and relationship satisfaction: first between intra‐individual vulnerability and sexual dissatisfaction, second between intra‐individual resources and sexual dissatisfaction, and third between conjugal characteristics and sexual dissatisfaction. The simple and sequential mediations were stronger for positive dyadic coping. The relationship between intra‐individual resources and positive dyadic coping was significantly stronger in women, while the relationship between conjugal characteristics and positive dyadic coping was stronger in men. Dyadic coping plays a key role in sexual dissatisfaction. Clinical interventions should reinforce positive self‐image (particularly in women), support emotional and physical vulnerabilities, and promote more supportive dyadic coping (particularly in men in a long‐term relationship).

The present research examined a model that evaluates the mediating role of both intrapersonal and interpersonal emotional competences (ECs) between attachment insecurity and the cognitive and emotional dimensions of empathy in patients with anorexia nervosa (AN). Women with AN completed the Experiences in Close Relationships Scale, the Profile of Emotional Competence, the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, and the Beck Depression Inventory. The results revealed that intrapersonal EC mediated the relationships between attachment insecurity (i.e., attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance) and emotional empathy in patients with AN. Importantly, a high emotional empathy in AN was associated with increased depression and anxiety symptoms. The results also indicated that a high level of attachment avoidance was indirectly associated with lower cognitive empathy through lower levels of interpersonal EC in AN. The present study emphasizes the importance of differentiating affective empathy from cognitive empathy and suggests clinical interventions in patients with AN.