Adult attachment style, reported childhood violence history and types of dissociative experiences.

Undergraduate and first-year graduate students (n = 410) were assessed for adult attachment, history of exposure to violence in childhood, and frequency of four types of dissociative experiences. Violence history was related to attachment style, as were four factors extracted from two dissociation measures. Each attachment style was predicted by distinct patterns ofviolencehistory and dissociation. Importantly, the four types of dissociation, despite their conceptual relationship, were empirically independent clinical phenomena, at times entering the regression equations in significant and opposite directions. The findings are discussed in the context of empirical and clinical issues in adult attachment, child maltreatment, and dissociation. Dissociation theorists since Janet have viewed complex alterations of self, memory, and knowledge integration as natural concomitants of exposure to traumatic events. The increased incidence of dissociative symptoms and disorders among those subjected to childhood maltreatment is by now well established, but clarifying the exact role of childhood abuse in the etiology of dissociative disorders remains a subject of intense scrutiny. Briere (1989, 1992) and Spiegel and Gardena (1991) have authored useful reviews. Most cony monly, researchers argue for a direct link. That is, children exposed to highly aversive and inescapable experiences are described as intentionally cutting off their experience by restricting and controlling their attention (Gelinas,1983) . The results of dissociative experience seem ideally suited to living 142 through (physically and psychically) traumatic events (cf. Ludwig's [1983] review of the functions of dissociation). Further, the automaticity and effectiveness of dissociation may increase if it is practiced and cultivated over time (Terr, 1994). In victims of chronic childhood violence, dissociation thus may become gradually more habitual and require less conscious effort, eventually growing into a defensive style and perhaps contributing to more serious psychopathology. Liotti (1992, 1993) has recently advanced a different but overlapping mechanism by which childhood experiences contribute to the development of adult dissociative experiences. Following the work of Ainsworth and Eichberg (1991), Barach (1991) , Main and Hesse (1990) , and Main and Solomon (1986, 1990), Liotti has proposed that insecure childhood attachments, particularly the newly elaborated disorganized/disoriented attachment style, are antecedents of adult dissociative psychopathology. According to these researchers, children cared for by a primary attachment figure who regularly displays frightened and/or frightening behavior are a) more likely to be classified as having a disorganized/disoriented attachment style, b) more likely to display dissociative symptoms as infants and children, and thus c) expected to show a higher level of dissociative symptoms in later life. In both theoretical writing and case studies, Liotti describes a congruence between frightening childhood experiences, dissociative symptoms, and disorganized/disoriented attachment schemas. The above emphasis on dissociative disorganization differs from Barach (1991), who focused on Bowlby's construct of detachment following chronically insensitive, rejecting feedback from parents. Barach ' s view of how insecure attachment could lead to dissociative symptoms is more theoretically consistent with a link between dismissing/avoidant attachment and dissociation. Attachment and Personality Organization Modern attachment theorists, following Bowlby (1969/1982, 1973, 1980), have viewed attachment relationships and the cognitive schemas relevant to attachment relationships as having central, organizing functions throughout the life cycle (Ainsworth, 1989, 1991; Grossman & Grossman, 1991; Sroufe & Waters, 1977; Weiss, 1986, 1991). These functions include providing frameworks for underDISSOCIATION, Vol. 1711. No. 1 September 1995 COE/DALENBERG/ARANSKY/RETO & Cassidy, 1985). In a modification of Main's system of assessing adult attachment, Bartholomew and Horowitz have proposed and validated four categories of adult attachment style described as Secure, Preoccupied, Dismissing and Fearful (Bartholomew, 1990; Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991; Griffin & Bartholomew, 1994; Horowitz, Rosenberg & Bartholomew, 1993; Scharfe & Bartholomew, 1994). Bartholomew's conceptual model and assessment instruments are designed to tap current attachment behavior and cognition in regard to peer attachment figures, while Main ' s work has been devoted to measuring an adult ' s "state of mind with regard to attachment," focussing on parentchildrelations (Main, 1991). While grounded in the work of Bowlby (1969/1982, 1973, 1980), Ainsworth, Main and others, Bartholomew ' s adult classification system also builds on the work of Hazan, Shaver and their associates, who have studied adult romantic relationships from an attachment-theoretical perspective (Hazan & Shaver, 1987, 1990; Shaver, Hazan, & Bradshaw, 1988; Shaver & Hazan, 1988) . Brennan, Shaver, and Tobey (1991) have since replicated and endorsed Bartholomew and Horowitz's fourcategory model and added conclinical findings to support it (see