Dissociation and crime: Abuse, mental illness, and violence in the lives of incarcerated men.
Item
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Title
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Dissociation and crime: Abuse, mental illness, and violence in the lives of incarcerated men.
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Identifier
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AAI9969736
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identifier
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9969736
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Creator
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Stein, Abby.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Robert Jay Lifton
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Date
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2000
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Sociology, Criminology and Penology | Psychology, Clinical
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Abstract
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This dissertation investigates the nature and scope of dissociative events experienced by a sample of sixty-four incarcerated men, hospitalized for either psychiatric or medical evaluation. Information gleaned from extensive interviews with the Juvenile Justice Assessment Instrument, modified for use with an adult population, questionnaire data culled from the Dissociative Experiences Scale, and official records where available, were used to explore the relationships between and among childhood trauma, dissociation, mental illness, and violent criminal outcome.;One third of the incarcerated men in this study were found to have elevated dissociation scores, while over a fifth met the criteria for pathological dissociation. As expected, horrific abuse during childhood, especially when accompanied by sexual abuse, was found to be a common antecedent of dissociation.;Dissociation appeared most pathological in individuals with underlying psychiatric or neurological vulnerabilities, suggesting that responses to trauma are likely shaped and intensified by mental illness and/or that mental illness may be exacerbated by traumatic experiences. Interestingly, despite lengthy psychiatric histories, not one of the fourteen subjects meeting the criteria for severe dissociation had ever been diagnosed with a dissociative disorder.;These violent men often committed their crimes in dissociated states. Of great interest, over seventy percent of severely dissociative inmates professed amnesia for their offenses, although none claimed to be innocent of the crimes with which they were charged. Thus, in stark contrast to their non-dissociative counterparts, who often denied their offenses, dissociative men were abundantly willing to assume guilt even when they were unaware of what they had done.;The dissertation provides an overview and analysis of salient issues in the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of dissociation in an inmate population as well as offering a discussion of the legal ramifications of dissociative diagnoses for criminal defendants. In a more theoretical vein, the dissertation synthesizes psychoanalytic, cognitive, and trauma models of dissociation to suggest an alternative paradigm for the study of dissociation as a character pathology.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
