Citation

Noeker M, Petermann F. Kindheit und entwicklung 2011; 20(3): 119-126.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011)

DOI

10.1026/0942-5403/a000048

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Terminology and concepts of dissociation and conversion have been deeply rooted in the psychoanalytical tradition for more than a century, while the empirically driven clinical psychology and child psychology have largely neglected this research field. Children have a lot of spontaneous dissociative experiences (e.g., daydreaming). They play an important role in emotion and affect regulation when confronted with stressors ranging from daily hassles to extremely challenging and traumatic experiences (e.g., traffic accidents, physical abuse, sexual violence). At least in the short run, dissociative coping mechanisms protect from sensory, cognitive and emotional overload. From a categorical perspective, dissociative disorders include both (psychoform) disorders of consciousness including amnesia, confusion, stupor, and disturbances of identity as well as conversion disorders including motor and sensory loss and nonepileptic seizures. Dissociative disorders have close ties to somatoform disorders, acute stress disorder, and posttraumatic stress disorder, as well as to emotionally instable and histrionic personality disorders. To date, the present therapeutic approaches are largely lacking an evidence-based foundation. In the future, dissociative disorders and mechanisms will not only deserve special research efforts from a psychopathological point of view but also from a therapeutic interventional perspective. The so-called third wave of behavior therapy and its various current mindfulness-based therapy approaches (acceptance and commitment therapy, meta-cognitive therapy, dialectical-behavioral therapy, schema therapy) have begun to explore the psychotherapeutic potential inherent to therapeutically induced dissociation. Dissociative techniques can support the patient in observing threatening or traumatic content of consciousness from a safe dissociated distance, hence overcoming previous perceptual and cognitive avoidance behavior.

Language: de