The Despair of Identity Diffusion: Associations With Psychache and Hopelessness and the Indirect Effect of Childhood Emotional Abuse

Abstract

Identity diffusion, involving a lack of cohesive personal identity, is a vulnerability factor in affective states—psychache and hopelessness—that often precede suicidality. Traumatic experiences, such as childhood emotional abuse, may limit the capacity to form a stable and coherent sense of self, thereby indirectly heightening the vulnerability to psychache and hopelessness through diffuse identity. The present study examined the relationship between identity diffusion and psychache and hopelessness, along with the indirect effect of perceived childhood emotional abuse. The sample (n = 297) comprised UK-based help-seeking adults recruited online. Eligible participants completed measures of identity diffusion, unbearable psychache, hopelessness and childhood emotional abuse at baseline, with psychache and hopelessness reassessed two months later. Regression analyses revealed that identity diffusion was significantly associated with both psychache and hopelessness over time, even after controlling for baseline levels. Mediation analysis further indicated that identity diffusion had a significant mediating effect on the relationship between childhood emotional abuse and later experiences of psychache and hopelessness. These findings underscore the importance of clinically targeting identity diffusion to help reduce presuicidal affective states, particularly among individuals who experience childhood emotional maltreatment.