The Haunted Self: Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology)

by Onno van der Hart

The survivor as ANP is sometimes able to present a façade of normalcy because the predominate symptoms of ANP are negative. That is, they are losses of function that often result from dissociation and mental avoidance of perceived threat. Losses can sometimes be more easily disguised, hidden, or ignored than positive symptoms. Dissociative losses may include a degree of amnesia (loss of memory), subjective detachment from reality (with intact reality testing), various forms of sensory anesthesia (e.g., loss of smell, hearing, sensation), loss of affect that results in emotional numbness or shallowness,

ANP and EP eventually must be integrated into a unified personality so that ANP realizes what has happened, and EP realizes traumatizing events have ended. Strenuous avoidance strategies are then less necessary, and survivors can engage in action tendencies that are more flexible and coordinated in daily life.

MENTAL HEALTH IS CHARACTERIZED by a high capacity for integration, which unites a broad range of psychobiological phenomena within one personality