Risk Factors for Traumatic Bonding and Associations with PTSD Symptoms

What could possibly lead individuals to become attached to people who cause them harm? Traumatic bonding, a construct similar to yet distinct from Stockholm syndrome, offers one possible psychological explanation as to why many people with abusive romantic partners do not break off these relationships. But the question remains: when comparing individuals with abusive romantic partners, what individual-level factors make some of these people more likely than others to develop traumatic bonding toward their current partners? In the present study, a path model based on a sample of 474 participants in abusive relationships is proposed. Childhood maltreatment and adulthood attachment insecurity are hypothesized to predict the extent to which an individual with an abusive romantic partner will develop traumatic bonding toward that partner. We also predict that traumatic bonding, in turn, may serve as a protective factor against the experience of PTSD symptoms.Keywords: childhood maltreatment, child abuse, insecure attachment styles, intimate partner violence victimization, domestic violence, traumatic bonding, Stockholm syndrome, PTSD symptoms