Relationship between Attachment, Emotion Regulation Process and Sexual Dysfunction Level: A Model Proposal

From the beginning of adolescence, sexual life, which has an increasing importance in a person's life, is affected by psychological, sociological and biological factors. In this study, the role of emotion regulation processes and positive-negative experiences was tested with Structural Equation Models with Path Analysis to explain the relationship between insecure attachment patterns and sexual dysfunction that is frequently studied in the literature. The sample of the study consisted of 201 women, with 35 or above scores on the Golombok Rust Sexual Satisfaction Scale, whose ages range between 18 and 31 years. When the direct relationships were examined, women who had insecure attachment patterns and who had higher negative experiences had higher sexual dysfunction levels. In contrast, the increase in emotion regulation difficulties was related to a decrease of sexual dysfunction level. However, difficulties in emotion regulation processes were positively related to sexual dysfunction level when indirect and total effects were taken into consideration. In addition, the avoidant attachment pattern predicted sexual dysfunction better than anxious attachment pattern.