Abandonment (emotional)

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Emotional abandonment is a subjective emotional state in which people feel undesired, left behind, insecure, or discarded. People experiencing emotional abandonment may feel at a loss. They may feel like they have been cut off from a crucial source of sustenance or feel withdrawn, either suddenly or through a process of erosion. Emotional abandonment can manifest through loss or separation from a loved one. [1]

Contents

Feeling rejected, which is a significant component of emotional abandonment, has a biological impact in that it activates the physical pain centers of the brain and can leave an emotional imprint in the brain's warning system. [2] Emotional abandonment has been a staple of poetry and literature since ancient times. [3]

Impairment and treatment considerations

Feelings of emotional abandonment can stem from numerous situations. According to Makino et al:

Whether one considers a romantic rejection, the dissolution of a friendship, ostracism by a group, estrangement from family members, or merely being ignored or excluded in casual encounters, rejections have myriad emotional, psychological, and interpersonal consequences. People not only react strongly when they perceive that others have rejected them, but a great deal of human behavior is influenced by the desire to avoid rejection." [4]

Our perception of rejection or of being rejected can have a lasting effect on how an individual acts. [5] [6] [7] One's perception may impair one's ability to establish and maintain close and meaningful relationships with others. [5] [8]

Individuals who experience feelings of emotional abandonment are likely to also experience maladaptive thoughts ("irrational beliefs") and behaviors such as depressive symptoms and relationship avoidance and/or dependence. This may cause abundant difficulty in daily life with interpersonal relationships and social settings. While such maladaptive thoughts and behaviors are sometimes present in the context of certain psychological disorders (e.g., borderline personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, depression, anxiety disorders), not all individuals who experience feelings of emotional abandonment will meet criteria for such a psychological disorder. These individuals may function within normal limits in spite of the presence of these emotional difficulties. [9] [8] Such feelings should only be considered by a mental health professional in conjunction with all available information and diagnostic criterion prior to drawing conclusions about the state of someone's mental health. [9]

When treatment is deemed appropriate by a mental health professional, there are several treatment plans that are helpful in improving maladaptive thoughts and behaviors commonly manifested in those who feel emotionally abandoned. For example, cognitive processing therapy (CPT) is effective in treating depression, anxiety disorders, and PTSD. [10] Emotion focused therapy (EFT) is effective in treating depression. [10] Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is effective in treating negative emotionality and impulsive behaviors commonly seen in those diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. [11] [12]

Another form of therapy that is suited to this population is acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). ACT focuses on an individual's avoidance of painful emotions and memories. ACT techniques are designed to cultivate thought processes that are focused on being present in the moment and accepting uncomfortable or painful thoughts and feelings. Reframing maladaptive perceptions of one's thoughts to adaptive perceptions of thoughts and committing to aligning one's behaviors with one's goals and values is fundamental to ACT treatment. [11] Just like the process of arriving at diagnostic conclusions, all modes of therapy and treatment plans should be based on individual presentation and should be evaluated by a mental health professional before beginning treatment.

Separation anxiety

Separation anxiety, a substrate of emotional abandonment, is recognized as a primary source of human distress and dysfunction. [13] When we experience a threat or disconnect within a primary attachment, it triggers a fear response referred to as separation stress or separation anxiety. [14] Separation stress has been the subject of extensive research in psychological [15] and neurobiological [16] fields, and has been shown to be a universal response to separation in the animal world. [17] When conducting experiments on rat pups, researchers separate the pups from their mothers for a period of time. They then measure their distress vocalizations and stress hormones to determine varying conditions of the separation response. [14] As the rats mature, their subsequent reactive behaviors and stress hormones are reexamined and are shown to bear a striking resemblance to the depression, anxiety, avoidance behaviors, and self defeated posturing displayed by human beings known to have suffered earlier separation traumas. [18]

Owing to the neocortical component of human functioning, when human beings lose a primary relationship, they are slow to grasp its potential repercussions (i.e. they may feel uncertain about the future or fear being unable to climb out of an abyss). There are additional factors that add to these fears such as "Unusual distress about being separated from a person or a pet, excessive worry that another person will be harmed if they leave them alone, heightened fear of being alone, physical symptoms when they know they will be separated from another person soon, excessive worry surrounding being alone, and needing to know where a spouse or loved one is at all times." [19] All the aforementioned factors add an additional layer of separation stress. [20] To abandon is "to withdraw one's support or help from, especially in spite of duty, allegiance, or responsibility; desert: abandon a friend in trouble." [21] When the loss is due to the object's voluntary withdrawal, a common response is to feel unworthy of love. This indicates the tendency for people to blame the rejection on themselves. "Am I unworthy of love, destined to grow old and die all alone, bereft of human connection or caring?" Questioning one's desirability as a mate [22] and fearing eternal isolation are among the additional anxieties incurred in abandonment scenarios. [23] The concurrence of self devaluation and primal fear distinguish abandonment grief from most other types of bereavement. [24]

Psychological trauma

The depression that might accompany abandonment can create a sustained type of stress that constitutes an emotional trauma which can be severe enough to leave an emotional imprint on an individual's psychobiological functioning. This can affect future choices and responses to rejection, loss, or even disconnection. [25] One after-effect of abandonment is that of experiencing triggers. These triggers are linked to our primal fear of being separated. This type of fear is referred to as primal abandonment fear. We fear being left alone and having no one to take care of our needs. People usually first experience anxiety as a fear of being separated from their mother [26] This sensation is stored in the amygdala – a structure set deep into the brain's emotional memory system responsible for conditioning the fight/freeze/flight response to fear. [27] Primal fear may have been initiated by birth trauma and even have some prenatal antecedents. [28] The emotional memory system is fairly intact at or before birth and lays down traces of the sensations and feelings of the infant's separation experiences. [29] These primitive feelings are reawakened by later events, especially those reminiscent of unwanted or abrupt separations from a source of sustenance. [30]

In adulthood, being left arouses primal fear along with other primitive sensations which contribute to feelings of terror and outright panic. Infantile needs and urgencies re-emerge and can precipitate a symbiotic regression in which individuals feel, at least momentarily, unable to survive without the lost object. [22] People may also experience the intense stress of helplessness. [31] When they make repeated attempts to compel their loved one to return and are unsuccessful, they feel helpless and inadequate to the task. This helplessness causes people to feel possessed of what Michael Balint calls “a limited capacity to perform the work of conquest – the work necessary to transform an indifferent object into a participating partner.” According to Balint, feeling one's ‘limited capacity’ is traumatic in that it produces a fault line in the psyche which renders the person vulnerable to heightened emotional responses within primary relationships. [32]

Another factor contributing to the traumatic conditions is the stress of losing one's background object. A background object is someone on whom individuals have come to rely in ways they did not realize until the object is no longer present. [33] For instance, the relationship served as a mutual regulatory system. Multiple psychobiological systems helped to maintain individuals’ equilibrium. [34] As members of a couple, they became external regulators for one another. They were attuned on many levels: their pupils dilated in synchrony, they echoed one another's speech patterns, movements, and even cardiac and EEG rhythms. [35] As a couple, they functioned like a mutual bio-feedback system, stimulating and modulating each other's bio rhythms, responding to one another's pheromones, [36] and addicting to the steady trickle of endogenous opiates induced by the relationship. [37] When the relationship ends, the many processes it helped to regulate go into disarray. [34] As the emotional and bio-physiological effects mount, the stressful process is heightened by the knowledge that it was not the person, but their loved one who chose to withdraw from the bond. [22] This knowledge may cause people to interpret their intense emotional responses to the disconnection as evidence of their putative weakness and ‘limited capacity to perform the work of conquest’. [32]

Post-traumatic stress disorder

Some people who experience the traumatic stress of abandonment go on to develop post traumatic symptoms. [38] Post-traumatic symptoms associated with abandonment include a sequela of heightened emotional reactions (ranging from mild to severe) and habituated defense mechanisms (many of which have become maladaptive) to perceived threats or disruptions to one's sense of self or to one's connections. [39] Such symptoms are all very common, regardless of how traumatic the event. They include "recurrent intrusive memories, traumatic nightmares, and flashbacks. Avoiding trauma-related thoughts and feelings and/or objects, people, or places associated with the trauma. Distorted beliefs about oneself or the world, persistent shame or guilt, emotional numbing, feelings of alienation, inability to recall key details of the trauma, etc." These symptoms all stem from devastating events that can have lasting effects on the brain through adulthood. [40]

There are various predisposing psycho-biological and environmental factors that go into determining whether one's earlier emotional trauma might lead to the development of a true clinical picture of post-traumatic stress disorder. [25] One factor has to do with variation in certain brain structures. According to Jerome Kagan, some people are born with a locus coeruleus that tends to produce higher concentrations of norepinephrine, a brain chemical involved in arousal of the body's self-defense response. [41] This would lower their threshold for becoming aroused and make them more likely to become anxious when they encounter stresses in life that are reminiscent of childhood separations and fears, hence making them more prone to becoming post-traumatic.

Borderline personality disorder

The most distinguishing symptoms of borderline personality disorder (BPD) are marked sensitivity to rejection or criticism, and intense fear of possible abandonment. [42] Overall, the features of BPD include unusually intense sensitivity in relationships with others, difficulty regulating emotions, issues with self-image and impulsivity. [42] Fear of abandonment may lead to overlapping dating relationships as a new relationship is developed to protect against abandonment in the existing relationship. Other symptoms may include feeling unsure of one's personal identity, morals, and values; having paranoid thoughts when feeling stressed; depersonalization; and, in moderate to severe cases, stress-induced breaks with reality or psychotic episodes.

Autophobia

Autophobia is the specific phobia of isolation; a morbid fear of being egotistical, or a dread of being alone or isolated. [43] Sufferers need not be physically alone, but just to believe that they are being ignored or unloved.

Related Research Articles

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental and behavioral disorder that develops from experiencing a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, child abuse, domestic violence, or other threats on a person's life or well-being. Symptoms may include disturbing thoughts, feelings, or dreams related to the events, mental or physical distress to trauma-related cues, attempts to avoid trauma-related cues, alterations in the way a person thinks and feels, and an increase in the fight-or-flight response. These symptoms last for more than a month after the event. Young children are less likely to show distress, but instead may express their memories through play. A person with PTSD is at a higher risk of suicide and intentional self-harm.

Abnormal psychology is the branch of psychology that studies unusual patterns of behavior, emotion, and thought, which could possibly be understood as a mental disorder. Although many behaviors could be considered as abnormal, this branch of psychology typically deals with behavior in a clinical context. There is a long history of attempts to understand and control behavior deemed to be aberrant or deviant, and there is often cultural variation in the approach taken. The field of abnormal psychology identifies multiple causes for different conditions, employing diverse theories from the general field of psychology and elsewhere, and much still hinges on what exactly is meant by "abnormal". There has traditionally been a divide between psychological and biological explanations, reflecting a philosophical dualism in regard to the mind-body problem. There have also been different approaches in trying to classify mental disorders. Abnormal includes three different categories; they are subnormal, supernormal and paranormal.

Psychological trauma is an emotional response caused by severe distressing events that are outside the normal range of human experiences. It must be understood by the affected person as directly threatening the affected person or their loved ones with death, severe bodily injury, or sexual violence; indirect exposure, such as from watching television news, may be extremely distressing and can produce an involuntary and possibly overwhelming physiological stress response, but does not produce trauma per se. Examples include violence, rape, or a terrorist attack.

Acute stress reaction and acute stress disorder (ASD) is a psychological response to a terrifying, traumatic or surprising experience. Combat stress reaction (CSR) is a similar response to the trauma of war. The reactions may include but are not limited to intrusive or dissociative symptoms, and reactivity symptoms such as avoidance or arousal. It may be exhibited for days or weeks after the traumatic event. If the condition is not correctly addressed, it may develop into post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emotional detachment</span> Inability and/or disinterest in emotionally connecting to others

In psychology, emotional detachment, also known as emotional blunting, is a condition or state in which a person lacks emotional connectivity to others, whether due to an unwanted circumstance or as a positive means to cope with anxiety. Such a coping strategy, also known as emotion-focused coping, is used when avoiding certain situations that might trigger anxiety. It refers to the evasion of emotional connections. Emotional detachment may be a temporary reaction to a stressful situation, or a chronic condition such as depersonalization-derealization disorder. It may also be caused by certain antidepressants. Emotional blunting, also known as reduced affect display, is one of the negative symptoms of schizophrenia.

Complex post-traumatic stress disorder is a stress-related mental disorder generally occurring in response to complex traumas, i.e., commonly prolonged or repetitive exposures to a series of traumatic events, within which individuals perceive little or no chance to escape.

Emotional dysregulation is characterized by an inability in flexibly responding to and managing emotional states, resulting in intense and prolonged emotional reactions that deviate from social norms, given the nature of the environmental stimuli encountered. Such reactions not only deviate from accepted social norms but also surpass what is informally deemed appropriate or proportional to the encountered stimuli.

Rape trauma syndrome (RTS) is the psychological trauma experienced by a rape survivor that includes disruptions to normal physical, emotional, cognitive, and interpersonal behavior. The theory was first described by nurse Ann Wolbert Burgess and sociologist Lynda Lytle Holmstrom in 1974.

Childhood trauma is often described as serious adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Children may go through a range of experiences that classify as psychological trauma; these might include neglect, abandonment, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and physical abuse, witnessing abuse of a sibling or parent, or having a mentally ill parent. These events have profound psychological, physiological, and sociological impacts and can have negative, lasting effects on health and well-being such as unsocial behaviors, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and sleep disturbances. Similarly, children whose mothers have experienced traumatic or stressful events during pregnancy have an increased risk of mental health disorders and other neurodevelopmental disorders.

Stress-related disorders constitute a category of mental disorders. They are maladaptive, biological and psychological responses to short- or long-term exposures to physical or emotional stressors. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences categorizes Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as stress-related disorders. However, the World Health Organization's ICD-11 excludes OCD but categorizes PTSD, Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD), adjustment disorder as stress-related disorders.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Broken heart</span> Intense stress or pain one feels at experiencing longing

A broken heart is a metaphor for the intense emotional stress or pain one feels at experiencing great loss or deep longing. The concept is cross-cultural, often cited with reference to unreciprocated or lost love.

Prolonged exposure therapy (PE) is a form of behavior therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy designed to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. It is characterized by two main treatment procedures – imaginal and in vivo exposures. Imaginal exposure is repeated 'on-purpose' retelling of the trauma memory. In vivo exposure is gradually confronting situations, places, and things that are reminders of the trauma or feel dangerous. Additional procedures include processing of the trauma memory and breathing retraining.

Derealization is an alteration in the perception of the external world, causing those with the condition to perceive it as unreal, distant, distorted or falsified. Other symptoms include feeling as if one's environment is lacking in spontaneity, emotional coloring, and depth. It is a dissociative symptom that may appear in moments of severe stress.

The effects of domestic violence on children have a tremendous impact on the well-being and developmental growth of children witnessing it. Children who witness domestic violence in the home often believe that they are to blame, live in a constant state of fear, and are 15 times more likely to be victims of child abuse. Close observation during an interaction can alert providers to the need for further investigation and intervention, such as dysfunctions in the physical, behavioral, emotional, and social areas of life, and can aid in early intervention and assistance for child victims.

PTSD or post-traumatic stress disorder, is a psychiatric disorder characterised by intrusive thoughts and memories, dreams or flashbacks of the event; avoidance of people, places and activities that remind the individual of the event; ongoing negative beliefs about oneself or the world, mood changes and persistent feelings of anger, guilt or fear; alterations in arousal such as increased irritability, angry outbursts, being hypervigilant, or having difficulty with concentration and sleep.

A cognitive vulnerability in cognitive psychology is an erroneous belief, cognitive bias, or pattern of thought that predisposes an individual to psychological problems. The vulnerability exists before the symptoms of a psychological disorder appear. After the individual encounters a stressful experience, the cognitive vulnerability shapes a maladaptive response that increases the likelihood of a psychological disorder.

Separation anxiety disorder (SAD) is an anxiety disorder in which an individual experiences excessive anxiety regarding separation from home and/or from people to whom the individual has a strong emotional attachment. Separation anxiety is a natural part of the developmental process. It is most common in infants and little children, typically between the ages of six to seven months to three years, although it may pathologically manifest itself in older children, adolescents and adults. Unlike SAD, normal separation anxiety indicates healthy advancements in a child's cognitive maturation and should not be considered a developing behavioral problem.

Trauma focused cognitive behavioral therapy (TF-CBT) is an evidence-based psychotherapy or counselling that aims at addressing the needs of children and adolescents with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other difficulties related to traumatic life events. This treatment was developed and proposed by Drs. Anthony Mannarino, Judith Cohen, and Esther Deblinger in 2006. The goal of TF-CBT is to provide psychoeducation to both the child and non-offending caregivers, then help them identify, cope, and re-regulate maladaptive emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. Research has shown TF-CBT to be effective in treating childhood PTSD and with children who have experienced or witnessed traumatic events, including but not limited to physical or sexual victimization, child maltreatment, domestic violence, community violence, accidents, natural disasters, and war. More recently, TF-CBT has been applied to and found effective in treating complex posttraumatic stress disorder.

Early childhood trauma refers to various types of adversity and traumatic events experienced during the early years of a person's life. This is deemed the most critical developmental period in human life by psychologists. A critical period refers to a sensitive time during the early years of childhood in which children may be more vulnerable to be affected by environmental stimulation. These traumatic events can include serious sickness, natural disasters, family violence, sudden separation from a family member, being the victim of abuse, or suffering the loss of a loved one. Traumatic experiences in early childhood can result in severe consequences throughout adulthood, for instance developing post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, or anxiety. Negative childhood experiences can have a tremendous impact on future violence victimization and perpetration, and lifelong health and opportunity. However, not all children who are exposed to negative stimuli in early childhood will be affected severely in later life; some children come out unscathed after being faced with traumatic events, which is known as resilience. Many factors can account for the invulnerability displayed by certain children in response to adverse social conditions: gender, vulnerability, social support systems, and innate character traits. Much of the research in this area has referred to the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACE) study. The ACE study found several protective factors against developing mental health disorders, including mother-child relations, parental health, and community support. However, having adverse childhood experiences creates long-lasting impacts on psychosocial functioning, such as a heightened awareness of environmental threats, feelings of loneliness, and cognitive deficits. Individuals with ACEs are more prone to developing severe symptoms than individuals in the same diagnostic category.

Out-of-home placements are an alternative form of care when children must be removed from their homes. Children who are placed out of the home differ in the types and severity of maltreatment experienced compared to children who remain in the home. One-half to two-thirds of youth have experienced a traumatic event leading to increased awareness and growing literature on the impact of trauma on youth. The most common reasons for out-of-home placements are due to physical or sexual abuse, violence, and neglect. Youth who are at risk in their own homes for abuse, neglect, or maltreatment, as well as youth with severe emotional and behavior issues, are placed out of the home with extended family and friends, foster care, or in residential facilities. Out-of-home placements aim to provide children with safety and stability. This temporary, safe environment allows youth to have their physical, mental, moral, and social needs met. However, these youth are in a vulnerable position for experiencing repeated abuse and neglect.

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