Journal of Addiction Research & Therapy
Open Access

Abstract

Psychotherapy of unresolved emotional conflicts may be used to efficiently treat dissociative disorder. This is based on the assumption that dissociation is caused by severe conflicts with perpetrators and that resolution of conflicts may alleviate symptoms. Conflicts with perpetrators as well as with passive participants are treated equally, starting with the more severe conflicts with perpetrators, since they appear to be related to the most severe symptoms. Dissociative disorder may be present in addiction and may be suspected in patients consuming heavier drugs, especially heroine or methadone. Dissociative disorder in addiction may be more psycho form and therefore much less obvious to diagnose than somatoform dissociation, but can be diagnosed with tests of dissociation like the DES, the S.D.Q.-20, and the SCID-D. Patients with addiction have been treated with psychotherapy of unresolved emotional conflicts controlling the success of psychotherapy via the disappearance of dissociative personalities in a safe place scenario, as well as through monitoring of reduced psychiatric symptoms and auditive hallucinations, sometimes manifesting up to several weeks after a psychotherapy session. Additive hallucinations were related to specific dissociative or so-called emotional personalities. Negative emotions linked to specific dissociative personalities may be creating a constant urge to the continued use of drugs in addiction.

Biography

Peuschel has studied medicine and molecular biology at the University of Zurich, as well as psychiatry and psychotherapy at the University of Lausanne. She has completed her MD from the University of Zurich, has worked in research in molecular biology at the University of Zurich and has obtained federal diplomas in general medicine as well as in psychiatry and psychotherapy. She is currently head of department at the Meissenberg Clinic in Zug, Switzerland. She has published 7 papers indexed in PubMed, she has been presenting her work at various conferences, and has been invited to conferences in Europe, the US, China, Japan, Thailand, India and the United Arab Emirates.

Email: karin@swissmail.com