OJSC “Research Institute of Psychotherapy and Clinical Psychology”

Saint-petersburg, russia

Prof. Sh. S. Tashaev

PhD of Biology, Doctoral Degree in Clinical Psychology

Russia, St. Petersburg

The concept of trauma (from Ancient Greek τραῦμα) embraces damage of the living tissue in conjunction with impairment of its defense mechanism. Damage arises as a result of a subject violation. There are physical and mental traumas. Both of them combine traces of malfunctioning physical nature, internals interoperability and adequate condition of psyche. Physical treatment of trauma removes the impairment of integrity of the physical nature; it recovers the internal’s normal functioning and may even recover the adequacy of injured person’s mental state. However, the consequences of trauma have a long-lasting impact on the quality of individual’s life, because trauma has the strong influence not only on consciousness of the individual but also (indirectly) on his/her unconscious perception. It may cause structural dissociation of personality, when the dissociated person is not able to re-integrate back into its common system without the assistance of a qualified psychotherapist. The main purpose of dissociated (sub)personalities — and of the central personality as well — is to adapt person to society and to inner communications of his/her psyche.