Relationship between thought suppression and dissociation and the mediating effect of rumination and unusual sleep experiences.

Abstract

Dissociation is a phenomenon present in a wide variety of psychiatric disorders as well as in the general population. The objective of this study was to examine the relation between trait thought suppression (TS) and development of dissociative phenomena in the nonclinical population, with emphasis on the potential mediating role of rumination and unusual sleep experiences (USEs) in a population with no psychiatric pathology. The sample was comprised of 482 participants from the general population (61.2% women) with a mean age of 31.28 (SD = 13.4). They completed the TS Scale (White Bear Suppression Inventory), Ruminative Response Scale, Iowa Sleep Experiences Survey, the Dissociative Experiences Scale, 2nd version Revised, and the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale–21. The results supported the original hypothesis and showed a positive correlation between trait TS and dissociation on one hand, and, on the other hand, between TS, rumination, and USEs. A serial mediation analysis showed that rumination and USEs mediated trait TS and dissociative states. Our study underlines the importance of variables related to TS, rumination, and USEs in understanding dissociative experiences and the importance of considering these variables in developing new theoretical dissociation models.