Boulevard of Broken Realities: Uncovering the Relationships Between Derealization/Depersonalization Disorder and Childhood Sexual Assault in Literature

The effects of childhood sexual trauma (CSA) can show up in various ways in an individual’s lifetime. This could include dissociative symptoms, posttraumatic stress disorder (PSTD), and derealization/depersonalization disorder (DDD) (American Psychiatric Association, 2022). These symptoms can affect an individual’s quality of life and contribution to society (Kapoor, 2023). This review explores existing literature on how PTSD, DDD, and CSA intersect in their impacts on an individual’s well-being in pursuit of implementing more research to find the underlying cause of DDD. The overlaps, parallels, and consistencies within behaviors, effects, and societal impacts regarding DDD, CSA, and PTSD are explored to further understand the root cause of DDD. Moreover, it will observe CSA’s impact through understanding concepts such as the law of parsimony and the biopsychosocial model.