The Psychological Mechanism Of Depression Based On Adult Attachment Background In College Student

According to attachment theory, secure attachment (parental-kids attachment and adult attachment) is critical to the development of mental health and emotional health. For example, according to Internal Working Model (IWM), early experience in childhood will be internalized and stabilized to a working model about self and others, and affect personal development. IWM affects many aspects of individual’s development, such as personal relationship, emotional regulation, personality traits ect. Many studies have found that good adult attachment can reduce emotional depression, or vice versa. But there are some limitations in these studies, such as, immature hypothesis, small study samples, few variants. So, we designed this study to thoroughly investigate the relationship between adult attachment and depression, to get a theory model about the working model between adult attachment and depression. There are five aims in this study:(1) to investigate the status quo of the adult attachment in college students.(2) To get the status quo of the depression among the college students.(3) To investigate the relationship between adult attachment and IWM (self-esteem and trust), which might be a mediator between attachment and social support, emotional stability and easygoing personality.(4) To investigate the mediators between attachment and depression, through the relationship study among depression with adult attachment, self-esteem, trust, social support, emotional stability and easygoing personality.(5) Using narrative therapy to test the effects of psychological therapy on the mediators and therefore on depression.In this study, we will employ1677college students, using relationship questionnaire, experience of close relationship questionnaire, self-esteem study, trust study, social support study, Big five personality questionnaire, ect, to measure adult attachment, self-esteem, trust, social support, emotional stability, easygoing personality, depression.Through these studies, we got some conclusions as below: 1> The overall adult attachment among the college students is very good. There are4types of adult attachment, which account for45.8%by secure attachment,21.8%dismissed,24.3%preoccupied,8.1%unresolved. The adult attachment is different among different parental marriage status, with stable family showing higher secure attachment, divorced family showing more dismissed or pre-occupied, re-married family showing more unresolved.2、The attachment avoidance is different between the male and female, and affected by family income. The female students show higher avoidance, and low income family shows higher avoidance. The attachment anxiety is different between rural family and urban families, with students from urban families showing higher anxiety.3、The overall depression is low in the college students, compared with other groups. But some students still show very high depression, and need to be taken care by psychological consolatory.4、The attachment avoidance and anxiety are positive predictors for self-esteem and emotional stability, but they are negative predictors for trust, social support. Both attachment avoidance and anxiety affect emotional stability, with self-esteem and trust being mediator for the emotional stability. Both attachment avoidance and anxiety affect the easy-going personality, with self-esteem and trust being the mediator.5、Adult attachment avoidance and anxiety affect depression positively, with anxiety affecting depression more. Self-esteem and emotional stability affect depression positively, but trust, social support and easy-going affect depression negatively. Adult attachment affects depression through self-esteem and trust, which, in turn affects social support, emotional stability, and then depression. Self-esteem and emotional stability are the major mediators for adult attachment and depression.6、Psychological consultation meditating the mediators between attachment and depression, can reduce attachment anxiety, attachment avoidance, self-esteem, trust, emotional stability and finally affects depression.In conclusion, the major contribution of the present study is that we made a multi-variant model between adult attachment and depression, by integrating many factors, including adult attachment, self-esteem, trust, social support, emotional stability and easy going personality ect.