Negative body experience in a clinical sample of mental disorders:
associations with PTSD, mood disorders, and personality disorders
Abstract
While body experience is a key focus of treatment in psychomotor therapy
(PMT), research has largely overlooked this important topic. In this
study we explored three domains of body experience – body satisfaction,
body attitude, and interoceptive awareness – in individuals with mental
disorders in a clinical sample receiving PMT. We expected these patients
to have a more negative body experience than non-clinical controls, with
PTSD, mood disorders, personality disorders and sex negatively affecting
all three domains of body experience. The study involved 235
participants aged 18-59 with various mental disorders that were referred
to PMT between 2008 and 2017 at a mental health center in the
Netherlands. They completed questionnaires on all three of the
aforementioned body experience domains. One sample t-tests revealed that
patients had significantly more negative body satisfaction and body
attitude than non-clinical control samples obtained from the literature,
with no significant difference in interoceptive awareness. Regression
analyses within the patient sample revealed that female patients and
patients with mood disorders or PTSD, displayed more negative body
satisfaction than patients with other mental disorders. Additionally,
female patients and patients with mood disorders displayed more negative
body attitude. Although the total patient group and controls had
comparable interoceptive awareness, only PTSD significantly predicted
lower interoceptive awareness. Age and personality disorders did not
predict differences on any domain of body experience. This research
demonstrates that body experience is disturbed in patients with mental
disorders who received PMT, and that there are disorder-specific
patterns in disturbances on domains of body experience.