TY - JOUR PY - 2014// TI - Dissociation is associated with emotional maltreatment in a sample of traumatized women with a history of child abuse JO - Journal of trauma and dissociation A1 - Haferkamp, Lisa A1 - Bebermeier, Anke A1 - Möllering, Andrea A1 - Neuner, Frank SP - 86 EP - 99 VL - 16 IS - 1 N2 - Theories of dissociation emphasize that symptoms of dissociation are correlated with traumatic events. While the association of dissociative symptoms and retrospective reports of child abuse with a focus on mainly sexual and physical abuse has been well documented, the investigation of the contribution of emotional or psychological types of maltreatment to the prediction of dissociation has been neglected to a great extent. The aim of this study was to determine the differential impact of different types of maltreatment on dissociative symptoms in a sample of 203 female residential patients treated for posttraumatic stress disorder linked to child maltreatment. Moreover, it was examined if the link between dissociation and child maltreatment is direct or indirect. Subjects completed questionnaires on child maltreatment, posttraumatic stress and dissociative symptoms. While all types of maltreatment were related to dissociative symptoms, emotional abuse was the strongest and direct predictor of dissociation in multivariate hierarchical analyses with the influence of other trauma types being confounded by emotional abuse. This study highlights the importance of emotional types of maltreatment for the genesis of dissociative symptoms in patients with PTSD.

Language: en

LA - en SN - 1529-9732 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15299732.2014.959149 ID - ref1 ER -