Self-harm, early emotional neglect and alexithymia in young Italian help seekers
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Introduction Recent studies showed that non-suicidal Self-Injury (NSSI) is a transdiagnostic behavior with multiple functions and motivational factors. More specifically, two key functions have been identified: the first is an interpersonal function (hurting/punishing others, influencing others’ behavior); the second involves personal goals (emotions regulation, dissociation, self-punishment). Some distal factors may contribute to the onset of this behavior (e.g., childhood abuse, emotional neglect), resulting in emotional dysregulation and alexithymia. Alexithymia, also called emotional blindness, a coping strategy to reduce emotional pain following trauma traumatic life events, emerged as a predictor of NSSI. Objectives The study aimed to investigate in a sample of young Italian help seekers referred to an early intervention service and a university counseling and consultation service (1) the prevalence of NSSI behaviors; (2) their correlation to early traumatic life experiences and alexithymia symptoms. Methods From March 2023, the young adults participating in this study filled a standardized battery (through a QR code). In this preliminary analysis, only data concerning the Deliberate Self-Harm Inventory (DSHI), Childhood Trauma Questionnaire – Short Form (CTQ-SF), and the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS – 20) were considered. Results Nowadays, 73 young adults participated in the study (60% women; mean age 26 years, SD 4.2). A third of the sample reported NSSI behavior lifetime, with a higher distribution among women (χ2= 9.425 p=0.002). By comparing the NSSI and No-NSSI groups, only the emotional neglect dimension exceed the clinical cut-off even if statistically significant differences emerged in all the early traumatic dimensions, with higher scores in the NSSI group as regard the emotional abuse (F= 18.321; p=0.000), physical abuse (F= 17.556; p=0.000), sexual abuse (F= 5.200; p=0.026), emotional neglect (F= 20.053; p=0.000), physical neglect (F= 12.134; p=0.001), minimization/denial (F= 13.384; p=0.000). The alexithymia symptoms, assessed with the TAS-20 scale, the NSSI group showed higher scores with a statistically significant difference compared to the No-NSSI group (F= 15.842; p=0.000) and, specifically, in the “difficulty describing feelings” (F= 10.351; p=0.002) and “difficulty in identifying emotions” (F= 13.543; p=0.000). Conclusions According to the social neuroscience model, these preliminary results suggested that young adults that practice self-harm behaviors may have experienced early emotional neglect, determining a vulnerability to recognize and regulate emotions in response to stressful events. It is therefore crucial to assess and monitor this behavior in all young people help seekers from mental health services, concerning the history of traumatic events and emotional difficulties, to plan personalized evidence-based interventions. Disclosure of Interest None Declared
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".