Anime frammentate: uno studio esplorativo sul Disturbo Dissociativo

In psychology the term «Dissociation» describes the experience of severe detachment from physical and emotional experience. The major characteristic of dissociation is a detachment from reality. The term also indicates a disruption in the usual integrated functions of consciousness, memory, identity and perception. This disorder may alter a person's consciousness, body experience, self, world and agency. Dissociation is displayed on a continuum: in some cases, dissociation can be regarded as an adaptive activity like a defense mechanism (representing the non-pathological end of the continuum). The pathological end of continuum, instead, involves Dissociative Disorder, including Dissociative Fugue and Depersonalization Disorder with or without alterated states of consciousness, alterations in personal identity or sense of self; these alterations include: depersonalization, derealization, amnesia, fugue, complex post-traumatic disorder. Dissociative experience is an intrusion into the person's usual way of responding and functioning. A typical example of dissociation as a defense mechanism is that of a person driving a car and having the sensation that he/she has been the «automatic pilot»; this common experience is caused by daily stress. Dissociation manifested through two tipes of phenomena: detachment and compartmentalization: ¿ Detachment includes out of body experiences and symptoms such as depersonalization and derealization; ¿ Compartmentalization reguards normally integrated mental functions such as memory, identity, control of emotions and the integrate sense of self. On the other side of the continuum there is a dissociative psychopathology which is better known as Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). The DID is a psychopathological condition in which alternative identities appeared inability by a traumatized children. Traumatic experiences are responsive to a create a space dissociative so traumatic and over time it brought to various fragmented personalities. The dissociation is a tentative made by the subject to maintain the personality unified despite the traumas. In this thesis I want to demonstrate the potentiality of dissociation as an adaptive defense mechanism for the individual, and subsequently the presence of dissociation as a disorder often associated with other disorders.