A trauma-related dissociation model may explain psychopathology of the difficult-to-treat BPD patients

There is a difficult-to-treat core group with severe psychopathology among borderline personality disorder (BPD) patients. Treatment advance for this group calls for extended etiological knowledge. I propose an evolutionarily-based model of trauma-related dissociation that will help explain psychopathology of severe BPD cases and has not yet been investigated in this area. Clinical and neurobiological evidence shows that trauma-related dissociation is a significant factor in the BPD etiology and indicates the model validity. Further evidence and model elaboration should be obtained from clinical and psychophysiological assessments of dissociative phenomena in BPD. (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier B.V. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of PSIWORLD2011