In recent years, studies of veterans and others who experienced various types of trauma have found a strong relationship between emotional numbing and arousal symptoms, challenging the current DSM-IV diagnostic criteria, which combines emotional numbing and avoidance symptoms in a single criterion. In this paper, we investigate emotional numbing symptoms in a community-based random sample of women of Japanese descent who had experienced interpersonal victimization, such as childhood abuse, intimate partner violence, and violence perpetrated by non-intimates (n = 202). Controlling for age, place of birth, and timing and severity of victimization, emotional numbing symptom counts were associated more strongly with arousal than avoidance symptoms, consistent with previous studies of veterans and assaulted women. In addition, emotional numbing symptom counts were significantly associated with age and, to a lesser degree, country of birth. Implications for research and practice are discussed.
In recent years, a number of studies have examined the relationship between emotional numbing (EN) and avoidance (AV) symptoms within the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Amdur & Liberzon, 2001; Feeny, Zoellner, Fitzgibbons, & Foa, 2000; Flack, Litz, Heich, Kaloupek, & Keane, 2000; Foa, Riggs, & Gershuny, 1995; King, Leskin, King, & Weathers, 1998; Litz et al., 1997; Taylor, Kuch, Koch, Crockett, & Passey, 1998; Tull & Roemer, 2003). Although the diagnostic criteria of the DSM-IV categorize emotional numbing and avoidance symptoms in a single criterion, there are growing empirical data that suggest that these two types of symptoms represent separate biological and/or emotional processes, and that emotional numbing is in fact more closely related to arousal than avoidance symptoms. In this paper, we investigated emotional numbing symptoms among American women of Japanese descent who had experienced interpersonal victimization.
