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Cited by 265Child Abuse and TraumaPsychosomatic Disorders and Their TreatmentsPsychoanalysis and Psychopathology Research

Quality of Early Care and Childhood Trauma: A Prospective Study of Developmental Pathways to Dissociation

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Dutra, Lissa, Bureau, Jean-Francois, Holmes, Bjarne, Lyubchik, Amy, Lyons-Ruth, Karlen·2009·Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease
DOI 10.1097/nmd.0b013e3181a653b7PMC PMC2697443
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Abstract

Kihlstrom (2005) has recently called attention to the need for prospective longitudinal studies of dissociation. The present study assesses quality of early care and childhood trauma as predictors of dissociation in a sample of 56 low-income young adults followed from infancy to age 19. Dissociation was assessed with the Dissociative Experiences Scale; quality of early care was assessed by observer ratings of mother-infant interaction at home and in the laboratory; and childhood trauma was indexed by state-documented maltreatment, self-report, and interviewer ratings of participants' narratives. Regression analysis indicated that dissociation in young adulthood was significantly predicted by observed lack of parental responsiveness in infancy, while childhood verbal abuse was the only type of trauma that added to the prediction of dissociation. Implications are discussed in the context of previous prospective work also pointing to the important contribution of parental emotional unresponsiveness in the development of dissociation.

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  • Research in BPD has found reasonably strong relationships between dissociation and childhood trauma, especially sexual abuse, physical abuse, attachment difficulties, and parental neglect.

    “Research in BPD has found reasonably strong relationships between dissociation and childhood trauma, especially sexual abuse [118, 121–124], physical abuse, attachment difficulties, and parental neglect [118, 125, 126]”

    From Dissociation and Alterations in Brain Function and Structure: Implications for Borderline Personality Disorder (2017) · cites this paper as [121]

    The paper reports associations between dissociation and childhood physical or sexual abuse in prior research, and its Discussion links later dissociation to parental emotional unavailability. But it does not establish these relationships specifically in people with BPD. Its own longitudinal study found that childhood abuse did not predict dissociation scores, so the claim also obscures an important qualification. (LLM, conf=0.86)

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  • Dissociative symptoms are frequently associated with disrupted development of attachment relationships.

    “In addition to their association with traumatic life events, dissociative symptoms are frequently associated with disrupted development of attachment relationships (Dutra et al., 2009;Liotti, 2006Liotti, , 2004;;Schore, 2002Schore, , 2009)).”

    From A review of the relation between dissociation, memory, executive functioning and social cognition in military members and civilians with neuropsychiatric conditions (2016) · cites this paper as Dutra et al., 2009

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Research works printed but not linked: 29

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Authors
Dutra, L., Bureau, J.-F., Holmes, B., Lyubchik, A., & Lyons-Ruth, K.
Affiliations
  • Boston University (US)
  • Harvard University (US)
Corresponding author
Dutra, Lissa
Venue
Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease
Publisher
Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health)
Published
2009-06
Volume
197
Issue
6
Pages
383-390
ISSN
0022-3018 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1097/nmd.0b013e3181a653b7
PMC
PMC2697443
OpenAlex
W2058827491
Cited by
265
References
10
Citations by year
2026: 10 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 23 · 2020: 14 · 2019: 18 · 2018: 14 · 2017: 25 · 2016: 12 · 2015: 18 · 2014: 21 · 2013: 19 · 2012: 19
FWCI
15.95
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
  • Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) (Harvard University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
Funders
National Institute of Mental Health (MH035122, MH062030, R01MH062030)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child Abuse and Trauma
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychoanalysis and Psychopathology Research
Keywords
dissociation, childhood trauma, child abuse, mother-infant interaction, low-income young adults, Dissociative Experiences Scale
MeSH terms
Child, Child Abuse, Child Behavior Disorders, Dissociative Disorders, Female, Follow-Up Studies, Humans, Life Change Events, Male, Mother-Child Relations, Object Attachment, Parents, Prospective Studies, Quality of Health Care, Surveys and Questionnaires, Socioeconomic Factors, Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic, Videotape Recording, Observer Variation, Parenting, Expressed Emotion, Young Adult

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