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With this research gap in mind, we used reflexive thematic analysis of interview transcripts to understand participants\u2019 accounts of their physical violence use toward partners, family members, friends, and associates while experiencing dissociative symptoms. Participants were 17 men and women completing community-based family violence perpetrator treatment programs or prison-based high-intensity treatment programs for violent offending. Three overarching themes and two subthemes were generated. The first theme, \u201cBecoming overwhelmed by emotions\u201d described participants\u2019 experiences of intensely unpleasant emotions immediately prior to entering a dissociative state. The second theme, \u201cTransitioning between states\u201d was split into two subthemes (\u201cDisconnection\u201d and \u201cReconnection\u201d) that described participants\u2019 experiences of disconnecting from and then reconnecting to their usual way of experiencing themselves and the world around them during the violent event. The final theme, \u201cGoing to the extreme\u201d described the extreme nature\u2014both objectively and subjectively\u2014of participants\u2019 physical violence while experiencing dissociative symptoms. Taken together, our findings highlight the potential importance of taking into account dissociative phenomena as contributors to violent behavior in adult survivors of childhood trauma, and in the assessment and treatment of violent offending.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1177\/08862605261417321","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,16]],"date-time":"2026-02-16T05:11:57Z","timestamp":1771218717000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/sage-journals-update-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["\u201cI Was Looking at Myself Do It, but It Wasn\u2019t Me\u201d: Experiences of Dissociative Violence by People With Histories of Violence Perpetration"],"prefix":"10.1177","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7949-2682","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Meg","family":"Stairmand","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-4827-0555","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Devon L. 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