The study used a convenience sample of 239 Australian adults (123 women and 116 men) recruited through personal contacts. The sample was surveyed for the incidence of traumatic childhood events, the perceived availability of emotional support from intrafamilial and extrafamilial figures, and the presence of a dissociative coping style. Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that perceived availability of emotional support in childhood was a predictor of current dissociative tendencies, but account of the support factor did not eliminate the relationship between childhood trauma and dissociation. The range of childhood trauma found to predict dissociative tendencies is consistent with data from previous studies (Irwin, 1994; Sanders et al., 1989), in which no account was taken of the availability of emotional support. Traumatic childhood events continued to contribute to the regression, despite the removal of the contribution of the factor of perceived emotional support in the previous stage of the hierarchical analysis. The data show that the previously documented link between childhood trauma and dissociative tendencies is not a mere artifact of the availability of emotional support during childhood. The results are consistent with the view that lack of emotional support is best deemed a mediator, rather than a primary cause of a dissociative coping style. Emotional support thus may alleviate some, but not all, of the impact of traumatic events on the development of a habitual reliance on dissociative processes. 2 tables, 18 references, and appended Childhood Emotional Support Scale