Results
The findings of fourteen interviews with trauma and dissociation
practitioners culminated in four major themes: the impact of social
support networks; dissociation as a coping mechanism; loneliness as a
trigger; and, recommended psychotherapeutic modalities and techniques
(therapy) for DD populations. To show the process of coding and
subsequent analysis and categorization into themes; codes, sub-themes,
and themes are included in Table 1 below in progressive order. In
regards to the primary research question: What is the perceived impact
of loneliness on the use of dissociation as a coping mechanism? The
findings, in short, show that there is a two-way relationship between
loneliness and dissociation as a coping mechanism, with it being a
complicated, non-linear relationship but having impact on one another
nonetheless. What most, if not all, participants agreed on was that the
relationship was indeed significant in DD patients, stating terms such
as loneliness “being the hallmark of the disorder,” and “existential
emptiness,” but was occupied with major factors that facilitate its
occurrence. The major upholding of the impact of loneliness on
dissociation takes place in the three themes outlined above; the lack of
social support networks at times can cause negative core beliefs about
one’s self to become further exacerbated, which can lead to feelings of
loneliness and emptiness to become severer, patterns of triggers to
occur faster, and dissociation as a coping mechanism to occur. This is
one example of how the first three themes interplay together in DD
populations.
Table 1: The results of the
research: the four major themes, sub-themes, and codes.