La dissociazione strutturale di personalità in una prospettiva clinica

The term dissociation in contemporary psychopathology may have multiple meanings: the Dissociative Disorder category, a cluster of symptoms and also trauma based psychopathological process hampering the integration of mental function. Starting from the theories of Janet, the psychological trauma seems to be the most important and direct cause of dissociative symptoms, but we can't substain a linear relation between trauma and dissociation. The Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was included in the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder, but nowadays this diagnostic category still have some important limits. The Internal Working Model of Disorganized Attachment, that often result from traumatic relations and adeverses experiences in childhood, represents an important element for explication for most of post-traumatic symptoms. The theory of structural dissociation of personality propose that the subjects with trauma-related disorders are characterized by a division of their personality in two kind of prototipical parts: one Apparently Normal and the other more Emotional. This dissociative parts of personality aren't integrated from each other and they are stuck in maladaptive action tendencies that mantain dissociation, including some particular range of phobias. The psychoterapy proposed for the structural dissociation is a Phase-oriented treatement that helps patients gradualy develop adaptive mental and behavioral actions, thus overcoming thei phobias and structural dissociation.