Psychotraumatology and dissociation: A theoretical and clinical approach

Abstract

The term “psychotraumatology” can be considered as a fundamental term which consists of the whole of research and studies related to the post-traumatic stress disorder. This discipline, of which rise can be thought as simultaneous with the emergence of the increase in the number of studies on the post-traumatic stress disorder, can under no circumstances be examined and explained without referring to the dissociative disorders which refer to the whole of the short and long-term effects of early chronic childhood traumas by its very nature. The main goal of this study is, thus, to consider the relationship between the field of psychotraumatology which involves the factors causing psychological trauma, the traumatic process itself and the outcomes of it with the post-traumatic stress disorder and dissociation, both of which are trauma-based clinical phenomena, in a historical dimension and various perspectives. In accordance with this goal, academic approaches in the recent psychotraumatological literature will be discussed in the context of trauma and dissociation.