Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between self-disorder and emotional functioning in schizophrenia patients. For this purpose, self-related variables were categorized into 3 levels: body consciousness as the low level of the self construct, sense of self and reality as the middle level, and self-esteem as the high level. Emotion variables were also categorized into 3 levels, such as emotional experiences, emotional control and interpersonal emotion variables. Fifty nine schizophrenia patients participated in this study. They completed 4 self-related self-report scales and 8 emotion related scales. The result showed that body consciousness positively related to all of the negative emotions except positive affect and anger. Also, sense of self and reality had strong negative relationships with all of the negative emotional experience variables except for the positive affect variable. And self esteem showed a similar trend with the sense of self variables, but especially had a strong relationship with positive affect. Among emotional experiences variables, anxiety had the highest correlations with most of the self-related variables. While most of the self-related variables closely related to emotional experiences, especially to anxiety, regardless of self level, the self disorders did not strongly relate to the deficits of emotional control for mood management and interpersonal emotions for social functioning. These results may suggest that to improve the condition of schizophrenia patients with self disorder, emotional disturbances should be given therapeutic priority, because they together with negative emotion and emotional amplifier components deteriorate the self function of patients. (Korean J Str Res 2012;20:279∼288)

• Keywords: Self, Emotional experiences, Emotional control, Interpersonal emotions, Schizophrenia;