Lecture notes
Theory and research about dissociation
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- University Of Portsmouth (UoP)
Document about dissociation, including research and theory
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DissociationKey Theories:
Trauma model, Dalenberg (2012): hypothesis = predicts a constant positive
relationship between trauma and dissociation:
Trauma Mediators Dissociation
Sexual Genetics Pathological and non-
pathological dissociation
Physical Developmental levels Other dissociative disorders
Sudden unexpected Psychiatric vulnerability Other psychopathologies
negative event
Frightening parental Pretrauma or post trauma
behaviour stress
Post trauma social support
Socio-cognitive theory, Spanos (1994): that multiple personality disorder is a social
construct, its context bounded and geared to the expectations of others.
Key studies:
Brand et al (2017): trauma related dissociation as a psychobiological reaction. In the
legal system, professionals must be aware of trauma related dissociation and how it
might affect their client and so it isn’t dismissed in court. It is trauma based no
fantasy based (fantasy models believe trauma related dissociation individuals are
highly vulnerable to suggestion and cognitive errors). Many clinicians are
inadequately trained and there is a lot of misinformation in the media.
Patihis et al (2019): (response to Brand), disagreeing. Mostly concerned with how
this relates to expert witnesses in court – reliability strength and confidence of what
they can say. Key concern = trauma-causes-dissociation argument can be used to
support claims of extraordinary remembering in court (e.g., recovered memories).
Putnam et al (1996): “clinical studies established that elevated levels of dissociation
are significantly associated with histories of trauma”.
Van Der Kolk et al (1996): “numerous studies have demonstrated a strong relation
between trauma and dissociative symptoms”.
Dalenberg (2012): “the dissociative individual is largely attempting to avoid recall of
trauma consciously or unconsciously” but doesn’t agree with the crazier ideas.
Pathological dissociation was conceptualised as a response to antecedent traumatic
stress and/or severe psychological adversity. The relationship between trauma and
dissociation was moderate in strength, dissociation wasn’t reliably associated with
suggestibility and there wasn’t any evidence for the fantasy model prediction of the
inaccuracy of recovered memories. Strong hypothesis support that trauma causes
dissociation and there is little support that the dissociation trauma relationship is
due to fantasy proneness or false memories.
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