Document Type
Article
Publication Date
4-2018
Publication Title
Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science
Volume
8
Abstract
When cognitively fused, people have difficulty accepting and clearly perceiving their internal experiences. Following trauma, emotional non-acceptance and emotional non-clarity have been associated with post-trauma functioning. The aim of the present study was to integrate theory and research on cognitive fusion and posttrauma functioning to evaluate a theory-based model in which emotion dysregulation—specifically, emotional non-acceptance and emotional non-clarity—mediated the association between cognitive fusion and post-trauma functioning in a veteran sample. Participants were 149 veterans with a history of military-related trauma. Veterans completed measures of cognitive fusion, emotion dysregulation, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, and life satisfaction. Overall, emotion dysregulation and PTSD symptoms mediated the fusion-posttrauma functioning association in theoretically consistent ways. More specifically, fusion was related to PTSD through emotional non-clarity and fusion was related to goal dysregulation through emotional non-acceptance and PTSD. Our findings indicate that fusion impacts different aspects of post-trauma functioning through different mediators. How these different pathways could impact clinical decision making are discussed.
First Page
1
Last Page
7
DOI
10.1016/j.jcbs.2018.02.002
ISSN
2212-1447
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Daniel W. Cox, Thomas C. Motl, A. Myfanwy Bakker, et al.. "Cognitive fusion and post-trauma functioning in veterans: Examining the mediating roles of emotion dysregulation" (2018). Education, Health & Behavior Studies Faculty Publications. 2.
https://commons.und.edu/ehb-fac/2