(PS7-A6) Effects of Homelessness on Emotional Experiences in Treatment-seeking Individuals

Homelessness is a pressing concern in Los Angeles County. Material deprivation, resource insecurity, social exclusion, and isolation related to homelessness often require individuals to focus on meeting daily basic needs in contexts that are physically and socially risky. Given these challenges, individuals experiencing homelessness may experience higher emotion dysregulation. Emotional regulation has been implicated in a wide range of interventions and may be a particularly useful strategy for individuals experiencing homelessness. Though differences in baseline emotional experiences between unhoused and housed individuals have not been explicitly studied, we hypothesize that unhoused individuals will experience higher rates of emotion dysregulation compared to their housed counterparts.
 
In the current study, we examined emotional experiences, including dissociation and emotional dysregulation, as related to housing status. Participants (N = 91) were adults seeking Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) via the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health. In our sample, 91.2% of individuals had stable housing (n = 83) and 8.8% were not housed (n = 8). Prior to initiating treatment, participants completed self-report measures of emotional experiences using the Dissociative Experiences Scale Taxon (DES-T; Waller et al., 1996) and the Difficulty in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS; Gratz & Roemer, 2004). The DERS produces scores on six subscales which include nonacceptance of emotions, difficulty engaging in goal-directed behavior, impulse control difficulties, lack of emotional awareness, limited access to emotion regulation strategies, and lack of emotional clarity.

Independent-samples t tests were conducted to compare group differences in emotional experiences (DES-T and DERS scores) by housing status (housed vs. unhoused). There were significant differences between housed and unhoused individuals on the DES-T, F(89) = 1.17, p = 0.031, with individuals experiencing homelessness (M = 17.38, SD = 7.38) scoring significantly higher than housed individuals (M = 12.12, SD = 6.40). There were significant differences between housed and unhoused individuals on the DERS subscale measuring lack of emotional awareness, F(89) = 11.88, p = 0.001, with housed individuals (M = 17.35, SD = 5.28) scoring significantly higher than individuals experiencing homelessness (M = 10.75, SD = 3.62). No significant differences were found in the DERS total score or the other subscales. 

Overall, results suggest that individuals experiencing homelessness experience higher levels of dissociative experiences when compared to their housed counterparts, though housed individuals experienced an increased lack of emotional awareness compared to their unhoused counterparts. Findings highlight the nuances in emotional experiences in individuals struggling with homelessness and implicate the importance of considering dissociative symptoms when delivering interventions, particularly for those experiencing housing insecurity. Future studies should examine emotional experiences in large-scale homeless samples, in efforts to clarify the connection between different types of emotional dysregulation and stable housing.