Article: Developmental pathways to dissociation: Are we forgetting something?

Developmental pathways to dissociation: Are we forgetting something?

This PDF provide the full text of this article published in the 2012 European Society for Trauma and Dissociation newsletter volume 3, number 1.

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The article stirred some controversy within the editorial board at ESTD and led to the inclusion of “A Response To Andrew Leeds’ Article” by Orit Badouk Epstein, which is included in the PDF.

Leeds, A. M. (2012). Developmental pathways to dissociation: Are we forgetting something? ESTD Newsletter, 3(1), 4-9.

Leeds, A. M. (2012). Afterword to developmental pathways to dissociation. ESTD Newsletter, 3(1), 12.

Is early trauma the root cause of dissociative disorders?

Most of the literature and research on pathological forms of dissociation focuses on trauma as the root cause of the DSM IV-TR (American Psychiatric Association, 2000) dissociative disorders, and many studies show an association between dissociation and trauma (Putnam, 1997). Yet this view is by no means universal as emerging research on attachment, evolutionary psychobiology, and the neurobiology of dissociation continues to influence the field. “The fact that nontraumatized individuals sometimes demonstrate dissociation and that not all trauma survivors dissociate suggests that there may be more to the etiology and development of dissociation than trauma alone” (Dutra, Bianchi, Siegel and Lyons-Ruth, 2009, p. 84). If early trauma is not the unique cause of pathological dissociation, then what else could cause it?