A Model of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders and Dissociative Identity Disorder from the perspective of Social Emotions

Main Article Content

Alessandro Fontana

Abstract

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Dissociative Identity Disorder are conditions caused by exposure to one or more stressful events of extraordinary magnitude and/or repeated over many years. The traumatic experience(s) may have different outcomes in different persons: some people fully recover within a short time, while others go on to develop one of these three disorders, whose interdependencies are still poorly understood. The present work utilises an updated version of a model of mental functioning, that has been previously applied to schizophrenia, to provide an interpretation of the aforementioned conditions. The model, built through the method of Artificial Life and with the toolset of Artificial Intelligence, foresees that the mind is subject to two forces: trauma, which represents the attack on the mind, and dissociation, which embodies the mind defence in both physiological and pathological conditions. The balance between these forces determines the pathological outcome.

Article Details

How to Cite
FONTANA, Alessandro. A Model of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders and Dissociative Identity Disorder from the perspective of Social Emotions. Medical Research Archives, [S.l.], v. 10, n. 3, mar. 2022. ISSN 2375-1924. Available at: <https://esmed.org/MRA/mra/article/view/2743>. Date accessed: 22 nov. 2024. doi: https://doi.org/10.18103/mra.v10i3.2743.
Section
Research Articles

References

1. Cloitre M. et al.. Distinguishing PTSD, Complex PTSD, and Borderline Personality Disorder: a latent class analysis. European Journal of Psychotraumatology. 2014.
2. Bozkurt H. et al.. High psychiatric comorbidity in adolescents with dissociative disorders. Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences. 2015;69:369–374.
3. Langton C.. Artificial Life. Addison-Wesley 1989.
4. Fontana A.. Is psychosis caused by defective dissociation? An artificial life model for schizophrenia. European Journal of Trauma and Dissociation. 2017;2(1):11–19.
5. Izard C.E.. Emotion theory and research: highlights, unanswered questions, and emerging issues. Annual Reviews Psychology. 2009;60:1–25.
6. Marsella S. et al.. Computational models of emotion. in Blueprint for affective computing:21–41 2010.
7. Tiedens L.Z.. Anger and advancement versus sadness and subjugation: the effect of negative emotion expressions on social status conferral. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 2011;80(1):86–94.
8. Noller J.U.. “Ich beneide dich”: das Paradox des Neides. Academia.edu. 2020.
9. Stevens A., Price J.. Evolutionary psychiatry: a new beginning. New York: Routledge 1996.
10. Fontana A.. A deep learning-inspired model of the hippocampus as storage device of the brain extended dataset. Arxiv. 2017;1706.05932.
11. Bzdok D. et al.. An investigation of the structural, connectional and functional sub- specialization in the human amygdala. Human Brain Mapping. 2013;34(12):3247–3266.
12. Quiroga R.Q. et al.. Invariant visual representation by single neurons in the human brain. Nature. 2005;435(7045):1102–1107.
13. Canto C.B. et al.. What does the anatomical organization of the entorhinal cortex tell us? Neural Plasticity. 2008;381243:635–704.
14. Lanius R.A.. Trauma-related dissociation and altered states of consciousness: a call for clinical, treatment, and neuroscience research. European Journal of Psychotraumatology. 2015;6.
15. Moskowitz A., Corstens D.. Auditory hallucinations: psychotic symptom or dissociative experience? Journal of Psychological Trauma. 2008;6:35–63.
16. Nijenhuis E.R., Hart O.. Defining dissociation in trauma. Journal of Trauma and Dissociation. 2011;12(4):464–473.
17. Perry J.C. et al.. Defense mechanisms in schizotypal, borderline, antisocial, and narcissistic personality disorders. Psychiatry Interpersonal and Biological Processes. 2013;76(1):32–52.
18. Gras A. et al.. Hallucinations and borderline personality disorder: a review. Encephale. 2014;40(6):431–438.
19. Phillips K.A.. Body dysmorphic disorder: recognizing and treating imagined ugliness. World Psychiatry. 2004;3(1):12–17.
20. Ruffolo J. et al.. Comorbidity of body dysmorphic disorder and eating disorders: severity of psychopathology and body image disturbance. The International Journal of Eating Disorders. 2006;39(1):11–19.
21. Main M., Solomon J.. Discovery of an insecure disoriented attachment pattern: procedures, findings and implications for the classification of behavior. Affective development in infancy. 1986.
22. Bremner J.D.. Traumatic stress: effects on the brain. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience. 2006;8(4):445–461.