Abstract
Background: Understanding the internal experiences of parents, for example emotion regulation difficulties, may help to reduce instances of psychological maltreatment and improve parenting support interventions. Evidence suggests interoceptive abilities may facilitate emotion regulation, however this relationship has not been demonstrated in parents.Objective: To look for a relationship between interoceptive awareness, in particular the Noticing sub-scale on the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness-2 (MAIA-2; Mehling et al., 2018) and two empirically supported emotion regulation processes: cognitive reappraisal and emotion expression suppression, in parents. Emotion regulation outcomes would be explored both globally and in the context of discipline encounters. Participants and setting: A sample of 69 parents (primarily mothers from White UK backgrounds, with exceptions)completed a series of questionnaires online. A total of 59 participants were included in the final analyses.
Methods: Participants completed the MAIA-2 (Mehling et al., 2018) to assess interoceptive awareness, the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ; Gross & John, 2003) to assess global emotion regulation, and the Revised Parental Emotion Regulation Inventory (PERI-2; Lorber et al., 2017) to assess parental emotion regulation during discipline encounters. A hierarchical multivariate multiple regression was used, entering covariates in Block 1,MAIA-2 Noticing in Block 2, and all other MAIA-2 sub-scales in Block 3.6
Results: No support was gathered for hypotheses relating to MAIA-2 Noticing and global emotion regulation, although Noticing did significantly predict PERI-2 reappraisal. Body Listening also predicted PERI-2 reappraisal, and Trusting predicted global (ERQ) reappraisal.
Conclusion: Further research is required to confirm whether there is a relationship between interoceptive awareness and emotion regulation in parents. Some evidence was gathered to suggest that interoceptive abilities may influence parental emotion regulation, although the expected relationship between MAIA-2 Noticing and global emotion regulation was not confirmed. Implications of these results, for example, for child maltreatment research, are presented in the Discussion section, alongside several key limitations to this study which may have influenced findings. Further research into interoception and its potential influence on emotion regulation is required.
The author’s Main Research Project was also centred around interoception and parenting, with an online study seeking to find a relationship between interoceptive awareness and emotion regulation in parents. As with the aforementioned review, this study had the broader aim of contributing to the literature on child maltreatment, in this case specifically psychological maltreatment, for this sub-type is thought to be the most prevalent and yet the least researched. The background section in this project draws together evidence to suggest emotion regulation may be a key concept to understanding psychologically abusive behaviours in parents, before going on to suggest that, since it has been demonstrated that interoceptive abilities appear to facilitate effective emotion regulation, this may once again present an area for intervention in at-risk parents. Participants completed the MAIA-2 for assessing various facets of interoceptive awareness, alongside two measures of emotion regulation; one that assessed their general emotion regulation strategy use (the ERQ), and one which assessed their use of these strategies in parent-to-child discipline scenarios (the PERI-2). Hypotheses relating to the Noticing sub-scale and the ERQ were not met, which contradicted existing evidence, however several significant relationships were found between different sub-scales of the MAIA-2 and various emotion regulation outcomes. These should be interpreted with caution due to the study’s various limitations and limited sample size (n = 59 in the final analysis), but the project makes an argument for further research exploring interoception and emotion regulation in parents, with numerous recommendations for how this may be approached.
The final project to be summarised is the Service-Related Project, which sought to learn from people receiving care on mental health inpatient wards about their experiences with customer care, or the interpersonal aspects of care. Designed in response to the apparent issues in inpatient care highlighted by national CQC reports and service user complaints, this pilot quality improvement project had a strong co-production element, with people with relevant personal experience (PPE) playing an essential role in various parts of the process. The co-produced survey was delivered by PPE as semi-structured 1:1 interviews in inpatient settings, with Likert scale responses presented descriptively and qualitative responses analysed through content analysis. The findings of the project were largely very positive, with a great deal of praise for staff teams gathered from service users, and a few areas for learning highlighted. All findings were fed back to the relevant clinical teams and disseminated trust-wide, and the co-produced survey is now being routinely used in quality assurance checks across the trust.
One final issue of note which holds relevance for all of the projects described within this thesis is the problem of non-representative samples in psychology research. While efforts were made by the author to address this, particularly in the Main Research Project, the issue was present to some degree in all three of the projects outlined above. It is hoped that, as high quality co-production (as was the aim with the Service-Related Project) becomes more commonplace, more links may be made with underserved and seldom-heard groups, which could then lead to less bias towards WEIRD communities. It is recognised by the author that it is the responsibility of all clinical psychology research and practitioners to endorse and enact this change.
| Date of Award | 10 Sept 2025 |
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| Original language | English |
| Awarding Institution |
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| Supervisor | Iris Lavi (Supervisor) |
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