ABSTRACT
The factors underlying violent criminal offenses need to be understood to reduce the frequency with which they occur and to find ways to treat those who enact such violence. The study of trauma and dissociation provides a lens through which to gain such an understanding, not just with regard for violence, but other criminal behaviors in which trauma and dissociation are sometimes fomented culturally. This chapter 1) reviews the concept of peritraumatic dissociation (PTD) as a possible explanation for depersonalization/derealization (DP/DR) during acts of violence while offering alternative explanations for this phenomenon; 2) examines the possible role of traumatic dissociation in other antisocial behaviors; 3) considers how the absence of ruling out dissociative disorders can lead to misdiagnoses and conflation of psychotic and dissociative symptoms; and 4) describes how the environment of incarceration can lead to psychological decompensations, exposing dissociative symptoms or obscuring them.
