The Importance of Religious/Ritual Abuse as a Traumatic Predictor of Dissociation

This study aimed to ascertain the prevalence of different types of Religious/Ritual Abuse (RA) among Iranian young adults and to investigate the relationships between RA, childhood and recent trauma, and different patterns of dissociativity. A total of 100 male and 100 female university students completed and returned a 51-item questionnaire designed to detect the extent of dissociation, childhood and recent trauma history, and RA; 12.5% of participants reported history of RA. Pearson correlation analysis showed that RA strongly correlated with dissociativity. The most notable finding of this study is that RA and being victim of violence within the last 3 years are the most important traumatic predictors of dissociativity. More research on the nature of the relationship between RA and dissociation is suggested.