Editor's Statement

Welcome to our fall issue for Volume 43, Issue 1. This issue contains five insightful studies that examine disassociation, mental boundaries and the association between self-esteem and social support, regulation of emotions in terms of detachment, behavioral inhibition, and spontaneous use of temperament as well as psychopathology and fluid intelligence in the form of openness to experience. The first study is by Craig Polizzi, Damla Ece Aksen, Fiona Sleight, and Steven Jay Lynn. They discuss how dissociation is characterized by interruptions in consciousness, behavior, body representation, emotion, identity, memory, motor control, and perception as noted by the American Psychiatric Association. They use Lynn and his associate’s model of dissociation that contains variables including sleep disturbances, emotional dysregulation, mindfulness, interoceptive awareness, and impulsivity as well as schizotypy (i.e., magical ideation) and borderline personality disorder. They sample over 350 respondents and using a series of regression analyses, report the association among dissociation dimensions (e.g., depersonalization, amnesia, absorption) and cognitive variables (i.e., fantasy proneness, cognitive failures, thought control). The correlations between dissociation and trauma-related variables (e.g., PTSD, resilience) are especially interesting. They report on indirect effects on dissociation for sleep, cognitive failures, and fantasy proneness. Findings are discussed in terms of how Lynn’s transdiagnostic model is reinforced and how multivariate studies advance understanding of dissociative disorders. The second study examines mental boundaries in association with self-esteem and social support. It is conducted by John Mathe and William Kelly. Their study is based on the work of Ernest Hartman who distinguished between thick and thin boundaries. Thick boundaries are characterized by black/white thinking and have more difficulty in seeing shades of gray. They have a solid physical boundary and a clear social connection to others in a group. Conversely, Individuals with thin boundaries are the opposite and do not have a strong sense of physical space and feel they fit in many groups and lack a clear connection to others. This study is the first to examine the association with self esteem and social support. In a sample of over 295 respondents, they use Hartmann’s Boundary Questionnaire and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem scale. Editorial