Abstract

The study examined adolescents' emotional separation and detachment from parents, analyzing their relations with some aspects of adolescents' psychological functioning associated to the process of self-other boundary regulation and problematic behavior. The participants were 331 Italian adolescents, aged from 16 to 19 years (mean age = 17.40, SD = 1.14). Results showed that emotional separation was negatively predicted by empathic concern, perspective-taking and separate self, and emotional detachment was negatively predicted by empathic concern and self-other differentiation. Lastly, results showed that only detachment positively predicted both internalizing and externalizing behavior.