Sexual Trauma in Childhood and Adulthood as Predictors of Psychotic‐like Experiences: The Mediating Role of Dissociation

Date

2021

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Child Abuse Review

Abstract

Research has highlighted the role of dissociation in understanding the trauma–psychosis relationship. Moreover, it has been proposed that the association between trauma and psychotic symptoms may be both directly and indirectly explained by dissociative processes. The current study sought to investigate the relationship between age at first sexual trauma, dissociative experiences and psychotic-like experiences(PLEs) in 269 female trauma survivors (overall mean age = 32.11, SD = 10.55).Mediation analyses were employed to estimate the direct effects of childhood sexual abuse (CSA; mean age at abuse onset = 6.53, SD = 3.98) and adult sexual assault(ASA; mean age at abuse onset = 18.72, SD = 2.59) on PLEs, and the indirect effects via the three subscales of absorption, depersonalisation and amnesia. The findings showed that the CSA group was signicantly associated with each of the three dissociation variables (p < 0.01 for each variable), while the ASA group was signicantlyassociated with absorption and depersonalisation (p < 0.01 for each variable). Depersonalisation partially mediated the effect between CSA and PLEs, whereas the relationship between ASA and PLEs was fully mediated via depersonalisation. The findings are consistent with, and complement, models implicating depersonalisation as a unique mechanism in the pathways between sexually based victimisation and PLEs.© 2021 The Authors. Child Abuse Review published by Association of Child Protection Professionals and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Description

Keywords

research, International Resources, United Kingdom, trauma, dissociation

Citation

O'Neill, T., Maguire, A., & Shevlin, M. (2021). Sexual Trauma in Childhood and Adulthood as Predictors of Psychotic‐like Experiences: The Mediating Role of Dissociation. Child Abuse Review.

DOI