Psychology Ph.D. Dissertations

Religious and Spiritual Coping with Parental Psychospiritual and Psychological Maltreatment of Transgender and Gender Diverse Individuals

Date of Award

2023

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Department

Psychology/Clinical

First Advisor

Annette Mahoney (Committee Chair)

Second Advisor

Meagan Docherty (Committee Member)

Third Advisor

Joshua Grubbs (Committee Member)

Fourth Advisor

Lauren Maziarz (Committee Member)

Abstract

This short-term longitudinal project investigated whether transgender and gender diverse (TGD) young adults who currently report greater parental psychological and psychospiritual (i.e., religious/spiritual one-upmanship) maltreatment by their parents experienced greater future psychological and relational distress, and whether greater positive and negative religious and spiritual coping (RS coping) with both types of parental verbal maltreatment buffers or exacerbates, respectively, TGD individuals’ psychological adjustment over time. This study included 76 TGD individuals (34.5% transgender female, 25.0% nonbinary, 21.1% genderfluid, 10.5% transgender male, 9.2% other) who completed questionnaires at two time points four months apart. Experiencing greater psychological maltreatment at Time 1 from a parent or parents significantly predicted more depressive symptoms (β=.50, p<.001), more anxiety symptoms (β=.31, p<.05), less relationship satisfaction with parents (β=-.52, p<.001), and less needs satisfaction from parents (β=-.41, p<.05) at Time 2 controlling for Time 1 levels on outcomes. Additionally, greater positive RS coping at Time 1 predicted fewer anxiety symptoms (β=-.38, p<.05) and greater relationship satisfaction with at least one parent (β=.44, p<.05) at Time 2, whereas greater negative RS coping longitudinally predicted greater depressive symptoms (β=.47, p<.001). Using quantitative data, this study demonstrates that TGD individuals can continue to experience parental psychological maltreatment even after becoming a legal adult, such experiences can lead to poorer psychosocial adjustment, and highlights the the importance of examining specific RS factors as differential predictors of mental health outcomes for TGD individuals.

Link to Full Text

Share

COinS