Citation

Dorahy MJ, Middleton W, Seager L, Williams M, Chambers R. J. Trauma Dissociation 2015; 17(2): 223-236.

Affiliation

a Department of Psychology , University of Canterbury , Christchurch , New Zealand.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/15299732.2015.1077916

PMID

26275087

Abstract

Only a select number of studies have examined different forms of child maltreatment in complex dissociative disorders in comparison to other groups. Few of these have used child abuse-related chronic PTSD and mixed psychiatric patients with maltreatment as comparison groups. This study examined child sexual, physical and emotional abuse, as well as physical and emotional neglect in dissociative disorder (DD; n = 39), chronic PTSD (C-PTSD; n = 13) and mixed psychiatric (MP; n = 21) samples, all with abuse and neglect histories. The predictive capacity of these different forms of maltreatment across the 3 groups were assessed for pathological dissociation, shame, guilt, relationship esteem, relationship anxiety, relationship depression and fear of relationships. All forms of maltreatment differentiated the DD from the MP group, while sexual abuse differentiated the DD sample from the C-PTSD group. Childhood sexual abuse was the only predictor of pathological dissociation. Emotional abuse predicted shame, guilt, relationship anxiety and fear of relationships. Emotional neglect predicted relationship anxiety and relationship depression. Physical neglect was associated with less relationship anxiety. Different forms of abuse and neglect are associated with different symptom clusters in psychiatric patients with maltreatment histories.

Language: en