Biomedical subjects

G Liotti

Publications and source records attributed to G Liotti.

10 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2002

Risk factors in the early family life of patients suffering from dissociative disorders.

OBJECTIVE: To test the hypothesis that not only intrafamiliar childhood abuses inflicted to the patient, but also major losses or other severe life events suffered by the mother within 2 years of patient's birth, are risk factors for the development of dissociative disorders (DDs). METHOD: A multicentric case-control study of 52 cases and 146 controls. RESULTS: We estimated a crude odds ratio (OR) of 2.6 (adjusted 1.9) for mothers' losses or other severe life events experienced within 2 years of patient's birth, and a crude OR of 7.6 (adjusted 7.2) for patient's early traumatic experiences. CONCLUSION: Mother's losses or other severe life events within 2 years of patient's birth and patient's traumatic experiences during childhood are risk factors for the development of dissociative disorders. A possible explanation of these findings is that disorganized or insecure attachment may increase susceptibility to traumatic experiences and propensity to dissociation in adult life.

Adult↗

PubMed2000

Predictive factors for borderline personality disorder: patients' early traumatic experiences and losses suffered by the attachment figure. The Italian Group for the Study of Dissociation.

OBJECTIVE: To test the hypothesis that serious losses in the life of the attachment figure and patients' early traumatic experiences are risk factors for the development of borderline personality disorder. METHOD: A multicentric hospital-based case-control study of 66 cases and 146 controls. RESULTS: We estimated an odds ratio of 2.5 (95% CI 1.1-5.8) for mothers' serious losses experienced within 2 years of patients' birth and an odds ratio of 5.3 (95% CI 2.1-13) for patients' early traumatic experiences. Both of them are adjusted for the confounding effect of the other as well as for that of age, size of family and type of patient (in- or out-patient), using a multiple logistic function. CONCLUSION: Mourning process in the mother within 2 years of the patient's birth and patients' early traumatic experiences are predictive factors for the development of borderline personality disorder.

Adult↗

PubMed1998

Psychoanalysis and cognitive-evolutionary psychology: an attempt at integration.

The authors argue that the abandonment of the theory of trauma in 1897 was a trauma for Freud himself, who was led to 'despair', and possibly reacted with an overemphasis on inner fantasies and drive discharge. They suggest that today we are facing a second trauma in the history of psychoanalysis that we might call the 'abandonment of drive theory', i.e. the notion that human beings strive not primarily to reduce sexual and aggressive drives but rather seek objects, assign meanings, test previous beliefs and assimilate new schemes. Our task is to recover as Freud was able to do, giving a new impetus to psychoanalysis. The current challenge is, on the one hand, a revision of the psychoanalytic conception of inherited information, and, on the other, a theory of motivation based on converging evidence from cognitive science, ethology, infant research and psychotherapy research. Many clinical models are current in contemporary psychoanalysis. Only as one example among these models, some concepts used in Weiss & Sampson's 'Control-Mastery Theory' will be discussed in light of cognitive science and evolutionary epistemology within the framework of (a) the 1960 classic, 'Plans and Structure of Behavior' by Miller, Galanter and Pribram (b) Edelman's neurobiological theory and (c) Bowlby's attachment theory.

Adult↗

PubMed1976