Early maladaptive schemas in misophonia

ABSTRACT

Objective

The study aimed to identify early maladaptive schemas that may be characteristic of individuals with misophonia.

Method

A sample of 289 individuals were recruited from social media websites. Participants responded to the Young Schema Questionnaire-Short Form, which assesses early maladaptive schemas (EMS), and the New York Misophonia Scale, a two-part self-report instrument rating the severity of emotional distress to misophonic triggers and the nature of behavioural reactions to misophonic triggers. Gender differences in the study variables were first examined using a series of univariate analysis of variance. To test the relationship between features of misophonia and EMS, correlation coefficients were calculated. Multiple regression analyses were then conducted by including age, gender and YSQ-SF scores as predictors and misophonic distress, aggressive reactions, and non-aggressive reactions as outcomes.

Results

Results revealed that higher insufficient self-control EMS was a common predictor of all aspects of misophonia, while higher age, female gender and higher social isolation/alienation EMS were predictive of the aversive emotional reactions in misophonia. Higher dependence and unrelenting standards EMS were specific predictors of non-aggressive reactions while dependence and vulnerability to harm or illness EMS were specific predictors of aggressive reactions to misophonic triggers.

Conclusions

Findings imply that schema therapy may be an effective intervention to alleviate misophonic distress.

Key points

What is already known about this topic:

1. Previous research has associated misophonia with psychopathological conditions such as obsessive-, anxiety, and depressive disorders.

2. Childhood adversities and early maladaptive schemas have been implicated as risk factors in obsessive-compulsive, anxiety, and depressive disorders.

3. Research on early maladaptive schemas that may be a common link shared by misophonia and obsessive-compulsive, anxiety, or depressive disorders is lacking.

What this topic adds:

1. The current study revealed that schemas within the disconnection/rejection and overvigilance/inhibition domains are common to both misophonia and anxiety disorders while those within the other-directedness domain may serve to distinguish misophonia.

   from anxiety disorders.

2. Similarly, schemas associated with disconnection/rejection and impaired autonomy/performance domains that have been reported as significant predictors and maintaining factors of depressive symptoms are also found to be associated with misophonia.

3. Furthermore, the insufficient self-control schema within the impaired limits domain appears to be the only one common across both misophonia and OCD.

KEYWORDS:

• Early maladaptive schemas
• misophonia
• schema therapy
• distress

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability

All data will be shared upon reasonable request.