Dissociation in individuals denying trauma exposure: findings from two samples.

J Nerv Ment Dis

*Departments of Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences and Psychology, Keck School of Medicine University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA; and †Department of Psychology, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

Published: June 2015

AI Article Synopsis

  • Studies indicate a link between dissociation and trauma exposure, suggesting that difficulty in regulating emotions after trauma may significantly contribute to this dissociation.
  • In a study involving both the general population and nontraumatized university students, affect dysregulation was found to be a strong predictor of dissociation, explaining 27% of its variance.
  • The findings imply that emotional distress, regardless of its source, can drive dissociation, and enhancing emotion regulation skills may be beneficial in treatment.

Article Abstract

A number of studies suggest that dissociation is reliably related to trauma exposure, and that inadequate regulation of posttraumatic distress may be a significant factor. We examined whether affect dysregulation predicts dissociation in those denying any lifetime exposure to trauma. These relationships were evaluated in a general population sample and a second sample of nontraumatized university students. In the first study, multivariate analyses indicated that, along with gender, affect dysregulation was a relatively strong predictor, accounting for 27% of the variance in dissociation. In the replication study, dissociation was associated with affect dysregulation, but not gender. Affect dysregulation seems to predict dissociative symptomatology in nontraumatized individuals. It is hypothesized that emotional distress, whether from trauma or other etiologies, motivates dissociation to the extent that it challenges the individual's compromised capacity for affect regulation. Treatment implications may include the potential helpfulness of interventions that increase emotion regulation skills.

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Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/NMD.0000000000000303DOI Listing

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