Trauma and syncope: Which relationship do they share?

Titolo Rivista MALTRATTAMENTO E ABUSO ALL’INFANZIA
Autori/Curatori Davide Crivelli, Michela Balconi
Anno di pubblicazione 2020 Fascicolo 2020/1
Lingua Inglese Numero pagine 20 P. 35-54 Dimensione file 232 KB
DOI 10.3280/MAL2020-001004
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Syncope is commonly deemed as a general clinical symptom that might connote different or-ganic and functional clinical pictures. Yet, remarks on nature and structure of associations between subjective emotional life, psychological distress, and syncope have fuelled a debate on potential causal implications of early exposure to distressing and/or traumatic events on early occurrence and recurrence of organic or psychogenic syncopal spells. The present work aims at providing an introductory overview on syncopal and psychogenic pseudosyncopal events and at discussing potential links between affective reactions, traumatic experiences, and occurrence of syncope symptomatology in the life-span. Finally, an interpretative model linking syncope as a shut-down reaction to overwhelming affective-laden situations is intro-duced and discussed.

La sincope è comunemente considerata un sintomo generico, associato a diversi quadri clinici organici e funzionali. Recenti riflessioni sull’associazione tra vissuti emotivi, distress psico-logico e manifestazioni sincopali hanno, però, alimentato un ampio dibattito sulle potenziali implicazioni dell'esposizione, in età infantile, a eventi stressanti e/o traumatici rispetto alla comparsa precoce di episodi sincopali organici o psicogeni, e alla loro recidiva. Questo lavoro intende fornire una panoramica introduttiva su comunanze e differenze tra eventi sincopali e pseudosincopi psicogene e discutere i potenziali collegamenti tra reazioni affettive, esperienze traumatiche e insorgenza di sintomatologia sincopale. Sarà, infine, discusso il possibile ruolo della sincope come una reazione di dissociazione a fronte di situazioni traumatiche emotiva-mente ingestibili o estremamente stressanti.

Keywords:Sincope; trauma; stress; emozioni; pseudosincope psicogena.

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Davide Crivelli, Michela Balconi, Trauma and syncope: Which relationship do they share? in "MALTRATTAMENTO E ABUSO ALL’INFANZIA" 1/2020, pp 35-54, DOI: 10.3280/MAL2020-001004