Emotional detachment and separation in parent-adolescent relationship
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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.
Keywords
- emotional separation
- emotional detachment
- relationship between parents and adolescents
- self-other boundary regulation
- behavior problems