Self-identity and chronic illness : is self-illness enmeshment unique to chronic pain?

Abstract

The study aimed to investigate whether self-illness enmeshment is unique to chronic pain using explicit measures of self and whether the implicit sense of self is less positive for those who experience chronic conditions than for healthy controls.  Three groups of participants; a group with chronic pain (n = 15), a group with type 2 diabetes (n = 15) and a healthy control group (n = 15) completed standardized self-report measures of affect and quality of life, then generated characteristics describing their current actual self, hoped-for-self and feared-for self, and made judgments about the degree to which their future possible selves (hoped-for and feared-for) were dependent on a change in their current health status and had a less positive implicit sense of self than participants with no chronic health problems.  Participants with diabetes did not significantly differ from the other two groups on these measures with the exception of higher levels of illness-enmeshment with a feared-for self.  This result is discussed in relation to self-discrepancy and self-regulatory theories and other research on illness-enmeshment and implicit self-esteem biases in clinical populations.

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