Dissociation in Black or Black-British People of African and African-Caribbean Descent in the United Kingdom

Abstract

Visibly black people of African and African-Caribbean descent (black people) are 2-5 times more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia and other psychoses than their counterparts from other ethnic minorities in the United Kingdom. However, the symptomology of psychotic illnesses and dissociative experiences are difficult to differentiate. Interestingly, black people detained under the Mental Health Act are more likely to give perceived racism as the cause of their emotional distress than their counterparts from other ethnic groups, but there is very little indication in the literature as to how perceived racism might exert its effect on black people's mental health. This study is designed to construct and test a theoretical model that related mental representations that might be indicative of the subjective experience of racism, with consequential racialized body image disturbance, dissociative experiences, and low global self-esteem. A Web-based questionnaire comprised of the Dissociative Experiences Scale II, Object Relations and Social Cognition Scale of Racial Identity, Racialized Body Image Disturbance Scale, and Rosenberg's Self-Esteem Scale was used to collect the data. As predicted, mental representations indicative of the subjective experience of racism were found to be directly related to racialized body image disturbance, dissociative experiences, and low self-esteem that could occur as a consequence of race-related incidents. However, the best predictors of dissociative experiences in Black people were low self-esteem, mental representations of indirect experience of racism, low academic achievement, young age, radicalized body image disturbance, and the predictors varied according gender and ethnicity.