Journal of Traumatic Stress June 2012, 25, 323–329 Dissociative Experiences as Mediators Between Childhood Trauma and Auditory Hallucinations Salvador Perona-Garcel´ an, 1 Francisco Carrascoso-L´ opez, 2 Jos´ e M. Garc´ ıa-Montes, 3 Mar´ ıa Jes´ us Ductor-Recuerda, 1 Ana M a L´ opez Jim´ enez, 4 Oscar Vallina-Fern´ andez, 5 Marino P´ erez- ´ Alvarez, 6 and Mar´ ıa Teresa G´ omez-G´ omez 7 1 Virgen del Roc´ ıo Mental Health Rehabilitation Unit, Andalusian Health Services, Seville, Andalusia, Spain 2 Reina Sof´ ıa Mental Health Therapeutic Community, Andalusian Health Services, Cordoba, Andalusia, Spain 3 Department of Personality, Evaluation and Psychological Treatment, University of Almer´ ıa, Andalusia, Spain 4 Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Seville, Andalusia, Spain 5 Sierrallana Hospital, Cantabro Health Service, Cantabria, Spain 6 Department of Psychology, University of Oviedo, Asturias, Spain 7 Department of Statistics and Operative Research, University of Seville, Andalusia, Spain The purpose of this work was to study the relationship between reported traumatic experiences in childhood and positive psychotic symptoms. We hypothesized that dissociative experiences were potential mediators between childhood trauma and hallucinations, but not delusions. The sample comprised 71 patients diagnosed with psychoses. They were assessed with the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES-II; Carlson & Putnam, 1993), a questionnaire on trauma (TQ; Davidson, Hughes, & Blazer, 1990), and the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS; Kay, Opler, & Lindenmayer, 1988) delusions and hallucinations items. The results showed that childhood trauma was positively associated with the dissociation scale scores (r = .40) and also the hallucination (r = .36) and delusions scale scores (r = .32). Furthermore, it was demonstrated that the dissociation variable was a potential mediator between childhood trauma and hallucinations, but not between childhood trauma and delusions. Of the 3 DES-II factors, only depersonalization showed a mediating relationship between childhood trauma and hallucinations. The main conclusion is that the impact of childhood trauma on hallucinations may not simply be direct, but mediated by dissociative experiences, especially depersonalization. Clinical implications are also briefly discussed. Recent years have seen a significant increase in our knowl- edge about psychotic disorders in general and schizophrenia in particular. This research field, however, is a highly complex one, and currently involves the study of multiple factors poten- tially related to the etiology of such disorders. Among these, it is, of course, necessary to mention biological factors, such as those of a genetic, biochemical, autoimmune, viral, or neu- rophysiological nature (see, for example, Keshavan, Nasrallah, & Tandon, 2011), but research has also focused on factors re- lated to certain processes of individuals’ social development (Morgan & Hutchinson, 2010). This work was carried out as part of research project PSI2009-09453, subsi- dized by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Salvador Perona-Garcel´ an, Unidad de Rehabilitaci ´ on de Salud Mental Virgen del Roc´ ıo, Servicio Andaluz de Salud, Avda. Kansas City, 32E, bajo, 41007 Sevilla, Spain. E-mail: sperona@us.es Copyright C  2012 International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com DOI: 10.1002/jts.21693 Among the social factors, there is increasing research interest in the relationship between trauma and psychosis. Read (1997) suggests that psychotic symptomology may emerge as a reac- tion to a trauma in which a person experiences certain events endangering his or her vital needs or later life. In a review of 46 studies on this subject, Bendall, Jackson, Hulbert, and McGorry (2008) found that the prevalence of total childhood traumas in persons with psychoses ranged from 28% to 73%, with sexual abuse ranging from 13% to 61%, and physical abuse from 10% to 61%. An important factor for understanding the relation between childhood trauma and psychosis is dissociative experiences (Moskovitz, Read, Farrelly, Rudegair, & Williams, 2009). Dis- sociation is defined as the structured separation of mental processes (for example, thoughts, emotions, conation, mem- ory, and identity), which are normally integrated (Spiegel & Carde˜ na, 1991). Although there is agreement among large num- bers of researchers that depersonalization, derealization, and psychogenic amnesia are core elements of dissociation, the concept is in need of refinement, and lacks a definition on which there is consensus among those who study it (Nijenhuis & Van der Hart, 2011). Even so, what seems to be most widely 323