No abstract

Complex posttraumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) follows persistent and repeated trauma and is a serious mental health problem among women. One of the strongest predictors of CPTSD symptoms is childhood trauma, especially child abuse and neglect, both of which are traumas that tend to be persistent and repeated. CPTSD is also associated with intimate partner violence (IPV; physical, emotional, and/or sexual violence in an intimate relationship), a trauma that, similar to child abuse and neglect, is also persistent and repeated. However, it is unclear how child abuse/neglect and IPV may jointly influence CPTSD symptoms vis-à-vis other traumatic events. In this study, we examined the relative effects of child abuse/ neglect and IPV on CPTSD symptoms over and above other traumatic events in a sample of women (N = 553) using a partial least squares approach to multiple regression and structural equation modeling. Results indicated that in general childhood trauma was the strongest predictor of CPTSD symptoms. However, when we analyzed specific aspects of child abuse, child neglect, and IPV, we found that childhood emotional abuse was the primary predictor of CPTSD symptoms over and above the effects of other traumatic life events, with sexual and emotional IPV also having small effects. These results highlight the salient effects of childhood emotional trauma on CPTSD symptoms among women, underscoring the importance of assessing for this in women presenting for treatment of CPTSD.

We explored language used in three behavioranalytic journals

Objective: Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a problem for women worldwide. One factor that affects the severity of women’s distress in the aftermath of IPV is how they make meaning of the violence they experienced. Posttraumatic meaning-making takes the form of 3 distinct posttraumatic cognitions: self-blame, other negative thoughts about oneself, and negative thoughts about the world. Women’s posttraumatic cognitions in the aftermath of IPV are in part a function of personality. Research on personality and posttraumatic cognitions has focused primarily on the influence of normative personality traits, although maladaptive personality traits are more common in clinical assessment. One of the most common models of maladaptive traits is DSM–5’s Alternative Model of Personality Disorder (AMPD), which contains 5 maladaptive variants of normative personality traits (Antagonism, Detachment, Disinhibition, Negative Affect, and Psychoticism). Although there is increasing research on the AMPD traits in general, there is limited research on the influence of these traits on women’s response to IPV specifically. Method: In this study we examine the association between AMPD traits and posttraumatic cognitions of IPV in a sample of women exposed to IPV (N = 199) using a Bayesian approach to multiple regressions. Results: Results suggest that IPV and Negative Affect were the primary influences on all 3 IPV-related posttraumatic cognitions and that other traits had differential effects depending on the type of posttraumatic cognition under analysis. Conclusions: These findings clarify our understanding of individual differences in posttraumatic response and have implications for the treatment of women exposed to IPV.

Lehinger et al.’s (2022) study on the associations between posttraumatic stress symptoms, posttraumatic cognitions, and alcohol use in sexual assault survivors extends previous research on posttraumatic response to sexual trauma. The study is useful for these purposes but it also raises other interesting questions about the nature of posttraumatic response and the structure of psychopathology more generally. In this commentary, we describe Lehinger et al.’s (2022) study and its findings and discuss their potential relevance for emerging transdiagnostic, hierarchical models of psychopathology.