Cumulative violence exposure, emotional nonacceptance, and mental health symptoms in a community sample of women.

Women exposed to more types of violence (e.g., emotional, physical, or sexual violence)--referred to here as cumulative violence exposure--are at risk for more severe mental health symptoms compared to women who are exposed to a single type of violence or no violence. Women exposed to violence may also experience greater emotional nonacceptance compared to women with no exposure to violence. Emotional nonacceptance refers to an unwillingness to experience emotional states, including cognitive and behavioral attempts to avoid experiences of emotion. Given the links between cumulative violence exposure, emotional nonacceptance, and mental health symptoms among female victims of violence, the current study tested victims' emotional nonacceptance as a partial mediator between cumulative violence exposure and the severity of 3 types of symptoms central to complex trauma responses: depression, dissociation, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. A non-treatment-seeking community sample of women (N = 89; M age = 30.70 years) completed self-report questionnaires and interviews. Bootstrap procedures were then used to test 3 mediation models for the separate predictions of depression, dissociation, and PTSD symptoms. Results supported our hypotheses that emotional nonacceptance would mediate the relationship between women's cumulative violence exposure and severity for all symptom types. The current findings highlight the role that emotional nonacceptance may play in the development of mental health symptoms for chronically victimized women and point to the need for longitudinal research in such populations.