Separation Individuation and Transitional Object Use in Daily Smoker Adolescents

Abstract

Background

Smoking is an important problem in adolescence. Early developmental trajectories are also associated with cigarette smoking.

Objectives

The present study aims to evaluate the separation-individuation process and use of transitional objects in daily smoker adolescents.

Method

The research included 97 adolescents who were daily smokers and 210 adolescents who were nonsmokers. Transitional object assessment questionnaire, strength and difficulties questionnaire- adolescent form(SDQ), children’s depression inventory(CDI) and state-trait anxiety inventory for children(STAI-C), separation and individuation test of adolescence(SITA) were applied.

Results

SITA subscales scores of engulfment anxiety, need denial, and rejection expectancy was higher and separation anxiety, teacher enmeshment, nurturance seeking scores were statistically significantly lower in smoker adolescents than nonsmokers. In logistic regression analysis, separation anxiety(odds ratio [OR] 0.93; 95% confidence interval[CI] 0.87-0.98), teacher enmeshment(OR 0.93; 95% CI 0.88-0.98), practicing mirroring(OR 1.05; 95% CI 1.02,1.08) and rejection expectancy (OR 1.06 95% CI 1.02,1.11) were found to be predictors of daily smoking. The use of a childhood transitional object for feeling tired and the use of an adolescent transitional object for feeling anxious and tired was found to be significantly higher in smokers.

Conclusions

There are some differences in the process of separation-individuation and the use of transitional objects in the smoker group. This suggests that early developmental characteristics may be associated with smoking. Further studies are needed to better understand the causal relationship between smoking and the separation-individuation process and transitional object use.

Keywords:

• transitional object
• separation
• individuation
• daily smoking
• adolescence

Acknowledgements

This study was produced from the dissertation of Burcin Özlem Ates, and the authors thank the staff of Cerrahpasa Child Psychiatry Department for their support in the study.

Declaration of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article.

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.