A primary interest of the field of infant mental health is in the early conditions that place infants at riskfor less than optimal development. The fundamental problem of what constitutes normal and abnormal development is now a focus of developmental psychology, infant psychiatry, and devel- opmental neuroscience. In the second part of this sequential work, I present interdisciplinary data to more deeply forge the theoretical links between severe attachment failures, impairments of the early develop- ment of the right brain's stress coping systems, and maladaptive infant mental health. In the following, I offer thoughts on the negative impact of traumatic attachments on brain development and infant mental health, the neurobiology of infant trauma, the neuropsychology of a disorganized/disoriented attachment pattern associated with abuse and neglect, trauma-induced impairments of a regulatory system in the orbitofrontal cortex, the links between orbitofrontal dysfunction and a predisposition to posttraumatic stress disorders, the neurobiology of the dissociative defense, the etiology of dissociation and body- mind psychopathology, the effects of early relational trauma on enduring right hemispheric function, and some implications for models of early intervention. These findings suggest direct connections between traumatic attachment, inefficient right brain regulatory functions, and both maladaptive infant and adult mental health.

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The effects of early relational trauma on right brain development, affect regulation, and infant mental health.

Objective:To review recent developments in alexithymia theory and research that are relevant to the field of psychosomatic medicine.Method:Articles were selected from the alexithymia literature pub...

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/070674370004500203

Recent Developments in Alexithymia Theory and Research

Personality traits, 2nd ed.

Studies concerning eating disorder patients have revealed the presence of alexithymia, depressive, and anxiety disorders. We compared these aspects of emotional functioning in two groups of anorexia nervosa (AN) patients: adolescents vs. adults. Forty-eight adolescent anorexia nervosa patients (ADO) and 23 adult anorexia nervosa patients (ADU) completed a battery of tasks and questionnaires to measure these different aspects of emotional functioning and to control for differences of a more general cognitive nature. Both groups showed marked resemblance; both had high alexithymia scores and performed worse on emotional tasks measuring aspects of alexithymia. Furthermore, both groups showed high percentages of depressive and anxiety disorders, with the ADU group scoring only higher on specific and social phobia than the ADO group. Adult and adolescent AN patient groups do not differ substantially with respect to emotional functioning.

Emotional functioning in anorexia nervosa patients: adolescents compared to adults.

Aggressive, violent behaviour is a major burden and challenge for society. It has been linked to deficits in social understanding, but the evidence is inconsistent and the specifics of such deficits are unclear. Here, we investigated affective (empathy) and cognitive (Theory of Mind) routes to understanding other people in aggressive individuals. Twenty-nine men with a history of legally relevant aggressive behaviour (i.e. serious assault) and 32 control participants were tested using a social video task (EmpaToM) that differentiates empathy and Theory of Mind and completed questionnaires on aggression and alexithymia. Aggressive participants showed reduced empathic responses to emotional videos of others’ suffering, which correlated with aggression severity. Theory of Mind performance, in contrast, was intact. A mediation analysis revealed that reduced empathy in aggressive men was mediated by alexithymia. These findings stress the importance of distinguishing between socio-affective and socio-cognitive deficits for understanding aggressive behaviour and thereby contribute to the development of more efficient treatments.

/pdf/social-cognition-in-aggressive-offenders-impaired-empathy-4x679q3rbs.pdf

R. M. Bagby

Papers

Emotional intelligence and the emotional brain: points of convergence and implications for psychoanalysis.