This article is dealing with the assumed relation between dissociation and symptoms of posttraumatic stress. More specifically, the results are reported of a controlled study into chronic dissociative symptoms of 43 traumatized police-officers with PTSD, of 51 traumatized police-officers with partial PTSD and of 50 traumatized police- officers without PTSD symptoms.

The results show that police-officers with PTSD exhibit significantly more dissociative symptoms than police-officers without PTSD or police-officers with partial PTSD. Police-officers with partial PTSD exhibit significantly more dissociative symptoms than officers without PTSD symptoms. The correlational study shows that it is most likely that PTSD (and also partial PTSD) precedes dissociation in point of time, and not the other way around. The discussion deals with the significance of these findings and suggestions for further study are given.