Psychological Factors of Emotional Disadaptation in Patients with Facial Movement Disorders

The article presents the results of a pilot study of personality factors that affect the severity of symptoms of emotional disadaptation among patients with movement disorders in the face. The study involved 41 patients with an established neurological diagnosis with clinical manifestations in the form of movement disorders in the face. The age of the respondents ranged from 22 to 66 years (mean age – 35.5±9.40). While studying the severity of emotional disadaptation the following have been included: the BFNE scale of fear of negative evaluation, aimed at studying the severity of fear of negative evaluation from others people (Leary, 1983; adaptation of E.N. Klimenkova, A.B. Kholmogorova, 2017), a depression scale aimed at examining the severity of symptoms of depression (Beck, 1961; adaptation of N.V. Tarabrina, 2001) and a Situational inventory of body image dysphoria designed to assess the negative attitude towards one's own body in the context certain situations (SIBID, Cash, 1994; adaptation of L.T. Baranskaya, A.E. Tkachenko, S.S. Tataurova, 2008) To study the psychological factors of emotional maladaptation, we used a three-factor questionnaire of physical perfectionism (A.B. Kholmogorova, A.A. Rakhmanina, 2020), a three-factor questionnaire of perfectionism (N.G. Garanyan, A.B. Kholmogorova , T.Yu. Yudeeva, 2018) and alexithymia scale (Toronto Alexithymia Scale or TAS-20 – G.J. Taylor et al., 1985; E.G. Starostina, 2009). Increased indicators of social anxiety were revealed in 66% of respondents, and moderate or severe symptoms of depression – in 39%; more than a third of respondents (37%) note increased appearance dissatisfaction. Physical appearance perfectionism, perfectionist cognitive style, and externally oriented thinking influenced body dissatisfaction level. In turn, the level of social anxiety depends on the level of socially prescribed perfectionism and the severity of external thinking, and the severity of symptoms of depression depends on the perfectionist’s cognitive style and the difficulty of identifying feelings. The results obtained substantiate the need to organize psychological assistance to this contingent and, on the basis of the developed methodological complex, make it possible to identify patients with an increased risk of emotional maladaptation.

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