E-ISSN : 2733-4538
‘Dissociation’ means the disconnection or separation of consciousness, which should be and remain continuous and integrated. This study aimed to explore the internal and external causes of dissociation; the disorganization of mind. We supposed trauma, overwhelming a person's coping ability, to be the external cause and a self-structure with high self-complexity and independently split self-aspects to be the internal cause. To demonstrate this hypothesis, we used the Dissociative Experience Scale to select a dissociative-tendency group and a normal control group from 380 university students taking online and/or offline psychology courses. Then, we administered the Early Trauma Inventory to the participants and we also administered Self Aspect Test to measure self-complexity. These results revealed that dissociative -tendency group have experienced more diverse early trauma than control group. The dissociative-tendency group reported having suffered more emotional, general, and sexual trauma but not more physical trauma than the control group reported, which supported the prediction that trauma functions as the external cause of dissociation. Furthermore, upon measuring self-structure, we found the dissociative group showed greater self-complexity than the normal control group did. They, however, regarded their complex divisions as disharmonious and chaotic mess. In other words, a dissociative group member's great self-complexity indicates the over-division of a less integrated self, which suggests a split self-structure is the internal cause of dissociation. The dissociative group's extraordinary self-complexity seems to be a kind of buffer limiting the shock of a trauma to one part of the self. In conclusion, we understand dissociation to be a phenomenon for over-dividing the self-structure and bufferring the shock of any trauma, at the cost of integrity. We conclude with the study's limitations and suggested directions for future study.
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