Feelings of inner emptiness, defined as a sense of inner void, emotional numbness, or hollowness, are a transdiagnostic experience associated with significant distress, impaired functioning, and increased risk for psychopathology. Although commonly studied in clinical populations, inner emptiness is also experienced by non-clinical individuals, particularly during adolescence and young adulthood – a developmental period characterized by substantial social, psychological, and biological changes.

Qualitative research suggests that feelings of inner emptiness frequently involve bodily experiences, including numbness, hollowness, or even a perceived “hole” in the body. However, these manifestations remain largely overlooked in existing research and current measurement approaches. Furthermore, previous research has found that inner emptiness is related to body-focused psychopathology, including disordered eating and non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI), which may serve as coping mechanisms to alleviate emotional numbness or attempt to “fill the void”. However, despite its prevalence and clinical relevance, research on the phenomenology of inner emptiness remains limited.

The current study addressed these gaps by examining the bodily experiences of inner emptiness and their associations with subjective severity, as well as their relationships with body-focused psychopathological symptoms in late adolescents and young adults from community and sub-clinical populations. Using the novel visual body-mapping tool, the InteroMap, this study aimed to provide a more detailed understanding of the lived bodily experiences of inner emptiness and its psychopathological correlates.