The Importance of Understanding Hierarchical Relations between High Order Mental Functions in Clinical Practice

Abstract

The state-of-the-art in studies on mentalization suggests that capacity to understand other minds (mindreading), self introspection and consciousness, mental time travel in the past and the present, linguistic communication, are different components of a hierarchical organization of several functions reflecting the evolutionary development of the specie and integrates increasingly complex, mutually coordinated brain levels. The understanding of the precise hierarchical relations between them, that reflect the phylo- and ontogenetic evolutionary pathway for adaptation to the complex interpersonal and socio-cultural environment, has an essential application in psychopathology and psychotherapy, in particular for those clinical conditions where the normal integration of high order mental functions is hampered by developmental relational trauma.

Keywords

• Hughlings Jackson
• Developmental Trauma
• Attachment Trauma
• Mentalization
• Body-centered Psychotherapies