The Cross-Cultural Assessment of Dissociation

Dissociation is a human capacity that can fulfill an adaptive or maladaptive function in specific circumstances, and which appears to be particularly recruited as a response to trauma in most cultural settings around the world. Although much of the initial work on dissociation was done in Europe and the United States, recent expansion of research on this topic in other cultural regions has led to welcome progress toward a more global understanding of dissociation. This progress is reflected in a greater ethno-cultural diversity of populations under study, expansion of the known phenomenology of dissociation and thus the conceptualization of the construct, creation of new assessment instruments, and renewed debate over existing diagnostic categories. This chapter reviews current understandings of the phenomenology and classification of dissociation from a cross-cultural perspective, including its relationship to trauma, with a focus on current assessment methodologies. These topics are illustrated with recent dissociation research from two non-US, non- European cultural settings, Puerto Rico and Turkey.