Frontal Lobe Dysfunctions, Dissociation, and Trauma Self-Reports in Forensic Psychiatric Patients

Cima, Maaike; Merckelbach, Harald; Klein, Brigitte; Shellbach-Matties, Rolf; Kremer, K.

doi:10.1097/00005053-200103000-00008

Cited by 42 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…The number of such studies is too large to be reviewed in detail here. With such a variety of studies to discuss, there is a danger of overemphasis on one of the few studies that found no correlation between trauma and dissociation in a small and nongeneralizable sample (e.g.. Cima, Merckelbach, Klein, Shellbach-Matties, & Kremer's, 2001, study of 30 male forensic psychiatric patients; r = -.07, p > .05) or those that find unusually high correlations in such samples (e.g., Lochner et al's, 2004, study of 31 trichotillomania patients; r = .61, p < .01). Focusing on evidence from the most methodologically rigorous studies.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The trauma-dissociation relationship is not weak and inconsistently found, as predicted by the FM, but rather appears reliably in both clinical and community samples. The incorrect conclusions reached by FM theorists may be caused by their reliance on undergraduate samples (e.g., Merckelbach et al, 2002) or on very small and underpowered studies (e.g.. Cima et al, 2001). At this point, research focus should be directed toward risk factors, moderators, and mediators (Kraemer, Stice, Kazdin, Offord, & Kupfer, 2001) of the trauma-dissociation relationship.…”

Section: Strength Of the Trauma-dissociation Relationshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Evaluation of the evidence for the trauma and fantasy models of dissociation.

Dalenberg

Brand

Gleaves

et al. 2012

Psychological Bulletin

520

499

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The relationship between a reported history of trauma and dissociative symptoms has been explained in 2 conflicting ways. Pathological dissociation has been conceptualized as a response to antecedent traumatic stress and/or severe psychological adversity. Others have proposed that dissociation makes individuals prone to fantasy, thereby engendering confabulated memories of trauma. We examine data related to a series of 8 contrasting predictions based on the trauma model and the fantasy model of dissociation. In keeping with the trauma model, the relationship between trauma and dissociation was consistent and moderate in strength, and remained significant when objective measures of trauma were used. Dissociation was temporally related to trauma and trauma treatment, and was predictive of trauma history when fantasy proneness was controlled. Dissociation was not reliably associated with suggestibility, nor was there evidence for the fantasy model prediction of greater inaccuracy of recovered memory. Instead, dissociation was positively related to a history of trauma memory recovery and negatively related to the more general measures of narrative cohesion. Research also supports the trauma theory of dissociation as a regulatory response to fear or other extreme emotion with measurable biological correlates. We conclude, on the basis of evidence related to these 8 predictions, that there is strong empirical support for the hypothesis that trauma causes dissociation, and that dissociation remains related to trauma history when fantasy proneness is controlled. We find little support for the hypothesis that the dissociation-trauma relationship is due to fantasy proneness or confabulated memories of trauma.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Strength Of the Trauma-dissociation Relationshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of the evidence for the trauma and fantasy models of dissociation.

Dalenberg

Brand

Gleaves

et al. 2012

Psychological Bulletin

520

499

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Again, however, our failure to find a connection between dissociation and a traditional measure of short-term memory has to be interpreted with caution. A clinical study by Cima et al (2001) showed that cognitive differences between forensic patients high and low on dissociation might be connected to deficits in executive functioning. In addition, in one of our own studies , we found that dissociation was related to minor disruptions in executive functioning.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dissociation, memory commission errors, and heightened autonomic reactivity

Giesbrecht

Geraerts

Merckelbach

2007

Psychiatry Research

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If dissociative symptoms are manifestations of a psychological defense mechanism, one would expect people who have such symptoms to react with lower levels of physiological arousal and with memory omissions to emotionally provocative material. The current study tested this assumption in a sample of undergraduates. Sixty-two undergraduate students viewed a highly emotional video fragment. Pearson's product-moment correlations were calculated between dissociation (as indexed by the Dissociative Experiences Scale, DES) and all dependent measures. High dissociators exhibited elevated skin conductance responses (SCRs) to the fragment. Memory for the video fragment was then tested. While omission errors were unrelated to dissociation, high dissociators exhibited a tendency to produce commission errors. This could not be explained by a reduced working memory capacity. However, fantasy proneness was found related to high dissociators' commission errors. Thus, it seems that a pattern of heightened emotional reactivity and commission errors is typical for people with elevated dissociation scores. This pattern is difficult to reconcile with the defensive function ascribed to dissociation.

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“…A second case in point is a study by Brewin and Beaton (2002) showing that individuals' working memory capacity and fluid intelligence are predictive of their suppressive capabilities, while Engle (2002) postulates a strong link between working memory capacity and task interference from irrelevant stimulus material. Interestingly, participants high on the DES-T exhibit deficits in response inhibition during the Random Number Generation Task (Giesbrecht, Merckelbach, Geraerts, & Smeets, 2004) and disruptions in executive (i.e., frontal) functioning in general (Cima, Merckelbach, Klein, Schellbach-Matties, & Kremer, 2001;Guralnik, Schmeidler, & Simeon, 2000; but see Wessel, Wetzels, Jelicic, & Merckelbach, 2005).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thought suppression, dissociation, and context sensitivity

Giesbrecht¹,

Smeets²

2006

NEJP

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Various studies have found that dissociative experiences, as measured by the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES), are related to thought suppression, as measured by the White Bear Suppression Inventory (WBSI). The link between dissociation and thought suppression was further investigated in a sample of undergraduate students (n = 220). Firstly, previous research was replicated and extended. More specifically, a robust correlation between DES and WBSI was found, even when more pathological manifestations of dissociation were taken into account. Moreover, the dissociation-suppression link was carried by the thought intrusion rather than thought suppression component of the WBSI. In a subsample of our study (n = 40), the relation between dissociation and performance on a thought suppression task was investigated using highly emotional stimulus material. Interestingly, the more pathological features of dissociation were related to inferior thought suppression performance. In addition, the susceptibility of the DES to context effects was illustrated, as intrusion frequency during the thought suppression task was only predicted by dissociation levels quantified separately from the thought suppression task. (Netherlands Journal of Psychology, 62,(73)(74)(75)(76)(77)(78)(79)(80)

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Frontal Lobe Dysfunctions, Dissociation, and Trauma Self-Reports in Forensic Psychiatric Patients

Cited by 42 publications

References 9 publications

Evaluation of the evidence for the trauma and fantasy models of dissociation.

Evaluation of the evidence for the trauma and fantasy models of dissociation.

Dissociation, memory commission errors, and heightened autonomic reactivity

Thought suppression, dissociation, and context sensitivity

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