Why Did This Happen to Me? Cognitive Schema Disruption and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Victims of Sexual Trauma

Many trauma researchers have proposed cognitive schemas as a heuristic device to understand the elusive process of integrating traumatic events. We examined the schemas of a sample (N = 257) of female participants classified by exposure to sexual trauma, nonsexual trauma, and no trauma experience. Cognitive schema was assessed with the Traumatic Stress Institute Belief Scale. As hypothesized, six schema subscales were significantly related to trauma group membership: Self-Intimacy, Self-Safety, Self-Trust, Other Intimacy, Other Safety, and Other Trust. Moreover, cognitive schema operated as a partial mediator in the relationship between sexual trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomatology. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for current theories of trauma and etiology of PTSD, and treatment interventions