The present study investigated the non-self as a predictor of depression, anxiety, social, romantic, and family loneliness, and resilience after controlling for variance explained by recollected caregiver sensitivity in childhood and attachment styles in adulthood. The non-self reflects feelings of having no sense of self, feelings of absence of existence, invisibility, being empty and persistent loneliness. The non-self was assessed with a newly created measure that captures this profound state of being. The study consisted of 185 Canadian and American participants who all reported being in a current romantic relationship, and who responded to survey questions using MTurk. All individuals who participated in the current study were selected based on variables of interest from a larger study. The research explored a new construct of the sense of self, referred to as the non-self. The data were analysed using bootstrapped hierarchical multiple regressions. The non-self accounted for a significant amount of variance in the prediction of depression, anxiety, family loneliness, and resilience after controlling for caregiver sensitivity and attachment styles. Future research should include the non-self to further our understanding of various psychosocial variables and determine if there are clinical applications in the use of the measure.
Keywords: non-self, caregiver sensitivity, depression, anxiety, loneliness, resilience, attachment styles