Attachment, Obsessive Beliefs and Emotion Dysregulation in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: A comparison with Normal and Clinical Sample
The present study aimed at investigating the differences between nonclinical sample and clinical sample (OCD patients) in attachment, obsessive beliefs and emotion regulation in Turkish sample. For these purposes 224 non clinical participants and 101 clinical OCD participants completed questionnaires related to research variables. Experience in Close Relationship Scale to evaluate attachment, Obsessive Belief Questionnaire to evaluate obsessive beliefs and Difficulties of Emotion Regulation Scale to evaluate emotion regulation abilities were used in this study. A series of t test for independent samples analyses were done. Findings of the analyses revealed that there was significant differences between two groups in anxiety level of attachment, but not in avoidance level. Also there were significant differences between two groups in all obsessive beliefs subscales such as responsibility and threat perception, perfectionism and need of certainty, the importance of thoughts and control. From emotional regulation perspective there were significant differences in non acceptance of emotional response, difficulties in engaging goal directed behavior, impulse control difficulties during emotional distress, limited access to emotional regulation strategies. However there was not significant differences between two groups in clarity about emotions and awareness of emotional arousal. To sum up according to results of this study attachment and obsessive beliefs follow the same pattern with the results in the literature. Moreover the difficulties of emotion regulation abilities thought to improve the knowledge about OCD. Because this part believed not to have enough findings in the OCD literature. The results were discussed in the light of the related literature and dependent recommendations to the area were given.