Attachment trauma and the developing right brain: Origins of pathological dissociation

The concept of dissociation has a long history of bridging psychiatry, psychology, and neurology. Because it is inextricably linked to the concept of trauma, theoretical and clinical models of dissociation have spanned the psychological and biological realms. Although the relationship between trauma early in the life span and dissociation was noted at the end of the nineteenth century, it is only recently that a developmental perspective is being used as a source of deeper understanding of the etiological mechanisms that underlie dissociation and dissociative disorders. Thus the problem of dissociation, like a broad spectrum of other clinical phenomena, is now being viewed through an interdisciplinary lens.