Self-Reported Memory for Abuse Depends Upon Victim-Perpetrator Relationship

Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-342-9678. E-mail address: Website: (c) 2001 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.We present preliminary results from the Betrayal Trauma Inventory (BTI) testing predictions from betrayal trauma theory (Freyd, 1994, 1996, in press) about the relationship between amnesia and betrayal by a caregiver. The BTI assesses trauma history using behaviorally defined events in the domains of sexual, physical, and emotional childhood abuse, as well as other lifetime traumatic events. When participants endorse an abuse experience, follow-up questions assess a variety of factors including memory impairment and perpetrator relationship. Preliminary results support our prediction that abuse perpetrated by a caregiver is related to less persistent memories of abuse. This relationship is significant for sexual and physical abuse. Regression analyses revealed that age was not a significant predictor of memory impairment and that duration of abuse could not account for the findings

Impact of Executive Function on Efficacy Obtaining Resources Following Intimate Partner Violence

Following intimate partner violence (IPV), women risk losing resources needed to meet their basic needs, such as food and housing. To identify potential points of community intervention, the current study examined the role of executive function (EF) in women\u27s efficacy to obtain resources following a police‐reported physical IPV incident. Participants were 199 women from diverse, urban, and largely lower‐income backgrounds. As predicted, greater physical abuse was associated with worse EF performance and worse EF was associated with less efficacy in obtaining resources 1 year later. Greater physical abuse was indirectly related to less efficacy in obtaining resources via EF, even when controlling for income. Results provide information regarding EF as a potential link in the relationship between IPV and obtaining resources among women of lower‐income backgrounds. In the context of limited resources, preparing community service professionals to use EF‐focused interventions (e.g., to structure tasks, repeat instructions) may support women\u27s efforts to access resources

Memory and Dissociative Tendencies: The Roles of Attentional Context and Word Meaning in a Directed Forgetting Task

Concep tual andmethodolog i cal approachesfromcog nitive sci encehave in creas ingly beenap plied to re search exam in ing the re - la tionbetweentrauma,disso ci ationandba sic cog ni tive function ing. The cur rent study rep li cates and ex tends re cent re search that ex am ined perfor mance in a di rected for get ting task us ing PTSD and trauma his tory as the group ing vari ables (McNally, Metzger, Lasko, Clancy, & Pitman, 1998) to col lege stu dents who were clas si fied as high or low dissociators based on their per for manceon the Dissociative Ex pe ri ences Scale (DES: Bernstein & Putnam, 1986). High and low DES participants per formance was ex am ined un der two attentional con texts: a se lec tive at ten - tion condition and two new divided attention conditions (based on DePrince& Freyd, 1999). Dif fer ences between the groupswere re vealed when a di vided at ten tion ver sion of the task was em ployed. Con sis tent with DePrince and Freyd (1999), when di vided at ten tion was re quired, high DES participantsrecalled fewer trauma and more neutral words than did low DES par tic i pants, who showed the op po site pat tern. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-342-9678. E-mail ad dress: <[email protected]> Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com> 2001 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.] AnneP.DePrinceandJennifer J. Freydareaf fil i atedwiththeUniver sity ofOregon

Dissociative tendencies, attention, and memory

Two groups of college students were selected on the basis of their scores on the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES). The high-DES group and low-DES group both completed the standard and a new dual-task version of the Stroop ink-naming task with xs (baseline condition) and color, neutral, and emotionally charged words. Free recall results indicated that high-DES participants remembered fewer emotionally charged words than low-DES participants. We found a crossover interaction for Stroop interference: High-DES participants showed more interference (conflicting color--baseline latency for ink naming) in a selective-attention Stroop task and less interference in the dual-task Stroop task. The interaction between attentional context and dissociation for Stroop interference and the free recall results are consistent with a cognitive-environments view of dissociative tendencies. In this view, dissociative tendencies, which have been otherwise speculated to be largely deleterious, can be advantageous in certain contexts

Forgetting traumatic stimuli

This is a preprint of an Article accepted for publication in Psychological Science © 2003 American Psychological SocietyPrevious work reported in this journal (DePrince & Freyd, 1999) suggested that the cognitive capacities of high dissociators are impaired under conditions of focused (selective) attention, but not under conditions of divided attention, compared to low dissociators. Using a directed forgetting paradigm, the current study demonstrates that under divided-attention demands high dissociators have impaired memory for words associated with trauma (e.g. "incest") but not neutral words, as compared with low dissociators. In addition, the high dissociators report significantly more trauma history and significantly more "betrayal trauma" (abuse by a caregiver). These results are consistent with the proposal that dissociation may aid individuals with a history of betrayal traumas to keep threatening information out of awareness

Shame and Alienation Related to Child Maltreatment: Links to Symptoms across Generations.

Objective: The current study investigated associations between appraisals of shame and alienation related to mothers’ own experiences of child maltreatment and symptoms across generations—in mothers themselves as well as their toddler/preschool-aged children. Method: Mothers who survived maltreatment (N = 113) with a child between the ages of 2 and 5 were recruited to participate in an online study on Maternal Coping, Attachment and Health. Mother participants completed a series of questionnaires, including those that asked about posttrauma appraisals of their own maltreatment experiences as well as their child’s and their own mental health symptoms. Results: When taking into account other posttrauma appraisals (e.g., fear, betrayal, anger, self-blame), maternal shame and alienation were both significantly associated with maternal trauma-related distress (a composite of anxiety, PTSD, dissociation, and depressive symptoms). Maternal shame was also significantly linked to child internalizing symptoms and externalizing symptoms. Lower levels of fear and higher levels of betrayal were associated with externalizing symptoms as well. Maternal trauma-related distress mediated the relationship between maternal shame and child externalizing symptoms, and partially mediated the relationship between shame and internalizing symptoms. Conclusion: This study is the first of its kind to examine the role of posttrauma appraisals among mother survivors of maltreatment as they relate to symptoms in their young children. Although additional research is necessary, findings suggest that mothers’ posttrauma appraisals, such as shame, could be a relevant factor in the early social-emotional development of survivors’ children

Abuse Awareness: Physical and Psychological Health Consequences

Despite established links between child abuse and psychological symptoms such as depression, dissociation, and anxiety, many abuse survivors experience awareness of specific abuse instances or abuse-related symptoms without acknowledging the abuse itself. The current study examines relations among abuse awareness, physical symptoms, and emotional functioning in young adults. One hundred eighty-five university students responded to questions regarding perceptions of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, as well as standard abuse and symptom measures. Ninety-six individuals completed the questionnaire a second time 1-2 years later. At baseline, labeling oneself as having been abused was not correlated with depression, anxiety, dissociation, or physical health complaints. At follow-up, however, labeling abuse was significantly positively related to depression, anxiety, physical health complaints, and the number of reported visits to a health professional, even after controlling for abuse severity. These results indicate that processes involved in abuse perception appear to be connected to individuals' psychological and physical functioning, and that abuse awareness may have important clinical implications.Supported in part by the Trauma and Oppression Research Fund at the University of Oregon Foundation, the University of Oregon Psychology Department’s Beverly Fagot Dissertation Award, Graduate Research Support Grant, and the Development and Psychopathology Training Grant (NIMH #5 T32 MH20012-04)