The Relationship Between Defense Mechanism And Post-traumatic Growth Among Parents Of Autism Spectrum Disorder Children: The Mediating Role Of Self-focused Attention

Parents of ASD children suffer from a heavy blow hard because their children’s diseases,and their mental health can not be ignored.Post-traumatic growth is to understand traumatic events from the perspective of growth and transformation,and to promote parents to give full play to their potential from a positive point of view and promote mental health.The post-traumatic growth of parents of ASD children is affected by many factors,including personality,ruminating,coping style,defense mechanism,self-focused attention,social support and so on.In order to explore the growth process of parents of ASD children after trauma,the relationship between defense mechanism and post-traumatic growth,and the role of self-focused attention in it,three studies were designed.In the first study,a semi-structured interview was conducted with the parents of 17 ASD children.The study found that the post-traumatic growth of parents of ASD children can be divided into six stages: presentiment period,pre-traumatic stage,mid-traumatic stage,pre-growth stage,mid-growth stage and late growth stage.The growth experience of parents of ASD children includes four aspects:personality growth,interpersonal benefit,personal ability growth and rethinking the meaning of life.And its influencing factors include child status,peer comparison,social support,defense style and self-focused attention.In the second study,120 parents of ASD children in Fujian autistic institutions were tested with "Post-Traumatic Growth Inventory","Defense Style " and "the Self-Focused Attention Scale".The results showed that sublimated and anticipation defense style were positively correlated with post-traumatic growth,undoing defense style was negatively correlated with post-traumatic growth,and self-focused attention played a partial intermediary role in the relationship between anticipation defense style and post-traumatic growth.In the third study,the 38 parents of post-traumatic growth of ASD children who adopted sublimation、anticipation or undoing defense style were given positive emotional stimulation and negative emotional stimulation,and their attention bias was studied by eye movement data.It turns out that parents who adopt sublimation defense style have more attention bias to positive emotion than those who adopt anticipation and undoing defense style.parents who adopt anticipation and undoing defense style have more attention bias to negative emotion than those who adopt sublimation defense style.In a word,the post-traumatic growth of parents of ASD children can be divided into six stages,four aspects,and self-focused attention plays a partial intermediary role between anticipation defense style and post-traumatic growth.Parents who adopt sublimation defense style than those who adopt anticipation and undoing defense style have more attention bias to positive emotion,have less attention bias tonegative emotion.