Empathy profiles in posttraumatic stress disorder: A person-centered approach to understanding emotion dysregulation and psychopathology.

BACKGROUND

Individuals with Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can experience significant emotion dysregulation and interpersonal impairments, with emerging evidence implicating alterations in empathy as a contributing factor. Prior research links specific empathy dimensions (e.g., personal distress, perspective taking) to psychopathology; however, little is known about how patterns across empathy dimensions may map onto distinct profiles, which in turn may be related to different clinical outcomes. The identification of empathy profiles in PTSD could provide the opportunity to tailor trauma interventions to specific patterns of empathic responding and improve interpersonal functioning. Therefore, this study aimed to identify empathy profiles in PTSD and their associations with emotion dysregulation and related clinical symptoms.

METHODS

Participants were 108 adults with PTSD (77.8% female; mean age = 38.76) seeking trauma-focused treatment. K-means cluster analysis on the Interpersonal Reactivity Index empathy subscales identified empathy profiles. Linear models compared profiles on clinical measures (childhood trauma, depression, anxiety, PTSD symptoms, dissociation, emotion dysregulation).

RESULTS

Three profiles emerged: High Empathy/Moderate Distress (32.4%), Moderate Empathy/Low Distress (38.0%), and Low Perspective-Taking/High Distress (29.6%). Follow-up univariate tests showed profiles differed significantly in depression, anxiety, and emotion dysregulation but not trauma history, PTSD symptoms, or dissociation. Emotion dysregulation differences remained significant after controlling for clinical and demographic covariates.

CONCLUSIONS

We identified novel empathy profiles in PTSD that show differential associations with emotion dysregulation and psychopathology. Emotion dysregulation emerged as the primary clinical correlate distinguishing these profiles, suggesting it may represent a key mechanism linking empathic patterns to functional outcomes.