BackgroundChildhood oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) is associated with adverse outcomes which can continue to impair life well into adulthood. Identifying modifiable etiological factors of ODD is therefore essential. Although bullying victimization and poor emotion regulation are assumed to be risk factors for the development of ODD symptoms, little research has been conducted to test this possibility.MethodsA sample (n = 1,042) from two birth cohorts of children in the city of Trondheim, Norway, was assessed biennially from age 4 to 14 years. Parents and children (from age 8) were assessed with clinical interviews to determine symptoms of ODD, children reported on their victimization from bullying, and teachers reported on children's emotion regulation.ResultsOppositional defiant disorder symptoms increased from age 4 to 6, from age 8 to 10, and then started to wane as children entered adolescence. A Random Intercept Cross‐Lagged Panel Model revealed that increased emotion regulation predicted a reduced number of ODD symptoms across development (β = −.15 to −.13, p < .001). This prediction was equally strong for the angry/irritable and argumentative/defiant dimensions of ODD. No longitudinal links were observed between bullying victimization and ODD symptoms.ConclusionsImproving emotion regulation skills may protect against ODD symptoms throughout childhood and adolescence.

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This study aims to investigate the prevalence of deliberate self-harm and its relationships to childhood and recent trauma and different patterns of dissociative features. A total of 100 male and 100 female college students were administered a 58-item questionnaire designed to detect the extent of dissociation, deliberate self-harm, and trauma history. Participants with deliberate self-harm behaviors reported more traumatic experiences and dissociative features than participants without such behaviors. Furthermore, the prevalence of deliberate self-harm (i.e., 40.5%) was similar to previous studies on college student populations. However, and contrary to earlier research, deliberate self-harm was significantly more prevalent among men (48%) than women (33%). The findings support the notion that trauma, pathological dissociation, and depersonalization/derealization play important functional roles in self-harm behaviors. From this perspective, it is feasible to understand individuals who engage in self-harm as either escaping from uncomfortable dissociative states or experiencing an infra-psychological conflict in which one dissociative part of the self is being abusive toward another.

The aim of this study was to test the validity of the "sleep-dissociation" perspective. In addition, and to gain a more comprehensive overview of the trauma-sleep-dissociation complex, we aimed to test in which manner and to what degree trauma sleep disorders and nightmares are related to dissociation. A total of 100 male and 100 female university students with mean age of 24 completed and returned a 160-item questionnaire designed to detect the extent of dissociation, childhood and recent trauma history, sleep disorders, and nightmares. Correlation analyses showed that sleep disorders and nightmares correlated significantly with history of childhood and recent trauma and dissociation. Findings from bootstrapping procedures showed that nightmares and sleep disorders, separately from each other, mediated the relationship between trauma and dissociation. However, when nightmares and sleep disorders were analyzed together in one data set, the only significant mediator was nightmares, which explained a substantial proportion of the total effect of childhood trauma on dissociation. These observations support the "sleep-dissociation" perspective on the relationship between trauma and dissociation, meaning that traumatic events might engender both sleep disturbances and nightmares, which in turn might play a pivotal role in the genesis of dissociative symptoms. The results of this study imply that trauma survivors, routinely, should be assessed and monitored with regard to sleep disorders and nightmares. Treating nightmares and, consequently, securing trauma survivors a consistent sleeping pattern and quality may play an important role in preventing the potential occurrence of dissociative symptoms.

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