Mental health treatment stigma, maladaptive personality trait domains, and treatment-seeking attitudes and behaviors.

OBJECTIVES: A barrier to seeking mental health care is treatment stigma, a form of stigma associated with seeking/receiving mental health treatment. Prior research has also demonstrated relationships between five-factor model personality traits and treatment-seeking attitudes. However, findings in this area are mixed and research has tended not to include assessments of maladaptive personality traits outlined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-Fifth Edition Section III: Emerging Measures and Models. The present study sought to examine relationships between maladaptive personality traits, treatment stigma, and treatment-seeking attitudes and behavior in an adult sample. METHODS: Participants (N = 500) completed a series of questionnaires assessing current and past mental health treatment-seeking behaviors, treatment stigma, attitudes toward treatment seeking, and maldaptive personality traits. RESULTS: Results revealed all five maladaptive personality traits were positively associated with increased treatment stigma, and in models controlling for the shared variance across maladaptive personality traits, negative affect, antagonism, psychoticism, and stigma exhibited unique associations with one's perceived value and need of mental health treatment, whereas negative affect, detachment, and stigma were uniquely associated with openness to seeking mental health treatment for emotional problems. While the five maladaptive personality traits were associated with a history of treatment-seeking behaviors at the bivariate level and after controlling for stigma, only negative affect was uniquely associated with treatment-seeking behaviors in a model including all five personality trait domains. Exploratory moderation analyses revealed associations between stigma and openness to seeking treatment varied as a function of maladaptive personality traits. CONCLUSIONS: This study extends prior research on the role of personality traits in understanding treatment-seeking attitudes and behaviors and may have clinical implications for the use of maladaptive personality trait screeners in practice.

Psychological inflexibility processes and nonsuicidal self-injury: Concurrent and prospective associations.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to examine concurrent and 3-month prospective associations between a multidimensional measure of psychological inflexibility and nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) among participants with a self-harm history. METHOD: Participants completed measures of NSSI, psychological inflexibility, negative urgency, and depression at baseline (N = 106, Mage = 34.70, SD = 9.43, 66% women), and were again assessed at follow-up (N = 86). RESULTS: Participants currently engaging in NSSI reported significantly higher psychological inflexibility as compared to those who have ceased NSSI. After controlling for covariates, psychological inflexibility was concurrently associated with NSSI recency and longitudinally predicted perceived likelihood of future NSSI. Psychological inflexibility was not associated with new NSSI acts after including baseline covariates. Finally, psychological inflexibility subscales demonstrated differential relationships with various NSSI functions. CONCLUSION: Results highlight the psychological inflexibility model's utility in understanding NSSI and have implications for future research that may inform clinical practice.

The strength of pursuing your values: Valued living as a path to resilience among college students.

Although stressful life events (SLEs) frequently relate to negative outcomes, many individuals demonstrate resilience by positively adapting to stressors without significant impairment. Valued living, a key process in the theory underpinning acceptance and commitment therapy is a response style characterized by daily purposeful actions that are linked to important values and may promote resilience in college students. This study examined the main and interactive effects of SLEs and valued living in the prediction of a multidimensional measure of resilience. Results supported a strong positive relationship between resilience and valued living. Further, valued living moderated the association between SLE negative impact scores and resilience (but not the association between cumulative prior year SLEs and resilience). Although SLE negative impact scores were negatively associated with resilience at lower levels of valued living, there was no demonstrated relationship at higher levels of valued living. Implications related to promoting valued living among college students in the service of increasing resilience are discussed.

The relationship between emotion regulation difficulties and psychopathic personality characteristics.

The factors of psychopathy assessment tools diverge in their relationships with numerous problematic behaviors and psychological disorders. Emotion dysregulation is a pathological process argued to cut across diagnoses, and may be important in better understanding these divergent associations. This study sought to clarify psychopathy's association with emotion regulation difficulties. It was predicted that the Fearless Dominance and Self-Centered Impulsivity factors of the Psychopathic Personality Inventory-Revised would demonstrate differential relationships with a multidimensional conceptualization of emotion regulation difficulties. Ninety-one male undergraduate students and 28 male court-mandated anger management participants completed self-report questionnaires measuring emotion regulation difficulties and psychopathic personality characteristics. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that emotion regulation difficulties were negatively associated with Fearless Dominance psychopathic traits, but positively associated with Self-Centered Impulsivity and global psychopathic traits. In addition, emotion regulation difficulties explained incremental variance in psychopathic traits over and above negative affect alone. These findings may have clinical implications for the etiology and treatment of psychopathic personality disorder.