Self-Transcendence as a Risk and Resilience Factor in Individuals at Clinical High Risk for Psychosis

Self-transcendence is a personality feature and psychological resource that involves feelings of connectedness with the universe, all of humanity, and the individual self. Self-transcendence has been positively associated with both positive psychotic symptoms and clinical high risk for developing psychosis status, but studies reporting these findings focus solely on the connectedness-with-universe aspect of self-transcendence. The broader self-transcendence literature, which also includes connection with humanity and oneself, robustly supports self-transcendence as an indicator of well-being. Given this discrepancy, we sought to understand whether self-transcendence should be considered a risk or resilience factor for youth at clinical high risk.

We operationalised self-transcendence using two more holistic measures novel to the clinical high risk population. Clinical high risk participants (n = 42) and healthy controls (n = 44) completed the Adult Self-Transcendence Inventory and participated in narrative life story interviews which were coded for self-transcendence themes.

Clinical high risk individuals scored lower than healthy controls on measures of self-transcendence, functioning, and life satisfaction. However, there were no group differences in the relationships between self-transcendence and measures of well-being.

Our findings suggest self-transcendence is a part of healthy personality development that may be impacted in clinical high risk individuals yet may still function as a psychological resource for this population, pointing toward new avenues for intervention in clinical high risk and other mental health populations.