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This page is an AI-assisted Turkish summary of the study presented at the 26th World Congress of Psychiatry. The study belongs to the presenting authors; please refer to the original source when citing it.

Adolescent Love and Mental Illness: The Missing Link

Adolescent love and mental illness: the missing link

Romantic experiences in adolescence are both a source of belonging and resilience and a powerful stressor that can trigger psychopathology in vulnerable adolescents, yet this connection remains insufficiently studied.

The talk examines potential connections between adolescent romantic attachment, relationship experiences, and the onset of mental illness. Romantic relationships in adolescence are presented as an important developmental experience in terms of identity formation, emotion regulation, a sense of interpersonal competence, and the first step toward adult relationships. Despite widespread clinical experience linking unrequited adolescent love to a first psychotic episode, this area remains insufficiently studied. Adolescent mental health research has traditionally focused on family relationships, peer interactions, bullying, trauma, and social media, while early experiences of love have received limited attention. Relationship instability, rejection, unrequited love, jealousy, and interpersonal conflict can constitute significant psychological stressors and may serve as particularly powerful triggers in adolescents with vulnerabilities such as insecure attachment, affective dysregulation, impulsivity, or emerging personality pathology. Romantic rejection and loss have been associated with depressive and anxiety symptoms, self-harm, suicidal ideation, and, in some cases, psychosis, aggression, or retaliatory behavior. The talk emphasizes that intense difficulties in early relationships may interact with developmental changes, emotion regulation, and one's general outlook on society. It concludes that adolescent love should be considered from an integrated developmental and psychopathological perspective, and that these experiences should be viewed not merely as normative developmental milestones but as a powerful context in which vulnerability and resilience interact.

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