Eli Somer

Oct 16, 20191 min

European congress features a multi-national sympsium om maladaptive daydreaming

The 2019 bi-annual conference of the European Society for Trauma and Dissociation to be held in Rome next week will feature a symposium titled: "Maladaptive daydreaming: An overview of a proposed disorder." Six presenters from the USA, Israel, Italy, Hungary, and Poland will present new findings on this multifaceted clinical entity that is not easy to pigeonhole. In this symposium, we will analyze the nature of this "thing" known as MD and conceptualize its nature. Maladaptive daydreaming (MD) is a newly identified, multifaceted clinical entity that is not easy to pigeonhole. There is an ongoing debate about its nature - whether it belongs to the spectrum of dissociative disorders, the spectrum of OCD, or behavioral addictions with disturbance of attention.  Presenters in this symposium will analyze the nature of this "thing" known as MD and conceptualize its nature. They will review the related constructs of fantasy proneness, default mode network, sluggish cognitive tempo, and stereotypical movement disorder, a potentially related psycho-pediatric condition. The panel will also examine evidence suggesting that MD is a pathological form of dissociative absorption that is also an addictive disturbance of attention. Treatment implications will be discussed.

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