Trauma and Dissociation in Convicted Offenders by Kathryn Quina Laura Brown

Author:Kathryn Quina, Laura Brown [Kathryn Quina, Laura Brown]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Law, Criminal Law, General, Psychology, Psychopathology
ISBN: 9780789033284
Google: Xl8NGQAACAAJ
Publisher: Haworth Medical Press
Published: 2007-01-15T04:44:42+00:00

METHOD

Participants

Participants were recruited from group therapy sessions at a court-mandated sex offender treatment program. Twenty survey packets were distributed, and seventeen male clients participated. All had been convicted of at least one sex crime against a child or adult. Participants were low income (average annual income = $9060, SD = 6068). Age ranged from 26 to 61 years (m = 43.3, SD = 13.7). Three participants indicated their highest level of education was less than high school. Twelve indicated obtaining a high school diploma or GED. One participant had a 2-year college degree and one had a 4-year degree. Fourteen participants identified as Non-Hispanic White, one as Hispanic white, and two as Native American/White.

Materials

Betrayal Trauma Inventory. Participants completed the physical and sexual abuse items (but not the emotional abuse items) from the Betrayal Trauma Inventory (BTI, Freyd, DePrince, & Zurbriggen, 2001), which assesses detailed information about childhood abuse (prior to age 16). Participants were asked about 34 detailed, behaviorally-defined events. An example physical punishment item asks if “someone punched you with a closed fist, or kicked you, anywhere on your body.” A sample childhood sexual experiences asks if “someone had you fondle them (for example, touch or caress their genitals or other parts of their body) in a sexual way.”

Abuse-Perpetration Inventory. The perpetration section of the Abuse-Perpetration Inventory (API, Lisak et al., 2000) was used to collect to information about sexual child abuse, adult rape, physical child abuse, and physical violence against an intimate partner. Because the BTI took its initial inspiration from the API, API items are similar to BTI items, in that employ specific, behaviorally-defined descriptions of events. An example item is, “Have you ever performed oral sex on a child close to you?” For all of the questions involving perpetration against a child, questions are repeated for a child “close to you” and “not close to you.” Subjects are asked to indicate the number times this event occurred (never, one time, 2-6 times, 6-20 times, 20-100 times, and 100+ times).

Dissociation During Victimization and Perpetration. The 10-item Peritraumatic Dissociation Questionnaire (PDEQ, Marmar, Weiss, & Metzler, 1997) followed each section of the BTI and API. Participants were asked to consider the last time they had any of the experiences they just responded to (e.g., any of the sexual abuse perpetration items) and answer the PDEQ items thinking about their reactions during that experience and immediately after using a 5-point scale. The PDEQ assesses dissociative experiences, such as “I had moments of losing track of what was going on–I “blanked out” or “spaced out” or in some way felt that I was not part of what was going on.” PDEQ item scores were averaged, and had a possible range of 1 to 5.

Trait Dissociation. The Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES, Bernstein & Putnam, 1986) is a widely used 28-item self-report survey assessing dissociation in everyday life. Participants rate the amount of times they experienced various experiences, from 0 to 100% of the time (excluding times they were under the influence of drugs or alcohol).

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