PAPER #102 - Cumulative trauma and its contribution in development of schizoaffective disorder.

Problem Statement: We choose to highlight the case of a 55 years old patient, with diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder in order to try to identify a possible link between psychiatric diagnosis and cumulative traumas suffered by the patient during all development stages. Purpose of Study: - Identification of trauma events that can be assigned as trigger events of various episodes of her psychic disorder - Identification of defence mechanisms specific to this patient and their contribution in creation of existent vulnerability. - Identification of positive and negative prognostic elements, that can sustain the patient to follow a psychiatric treatment and in a sustained qualitative and long term remission of the disease. We started from the following hypothesis: - we supposed that cumulative traumas have favored the occurrence of present psychiatric disorder - we supposed that identifying the patient resources can have a major contribution in her reinsertion (social and professional) Research Methods: We followed the patient by psychiatric and psychological examination Findings: Late onset of psychopathological manifestations for this patient rises the problem of a differential diagnosis between a schizoaffective disorder and a bipolar affective disorder. What tip the balance is the richness of perceptual phenomenon, significantly disorganization on thinking level and on speech level, increase persistence of symptomatology, the bizarre and spectacular delirant ideation. Conclusions: The patient is using the delirant interpretative defense mechanism while in her attempt for finding the truth, feels that somewhere she loses the essence of the things, loosing in this way the capacity of reality testing. During clinical interviews, she is dysphoric with circumstantial speech, she has as a distinctive element the lookalike illusion, she states that the presence of a thought as a third entity and gives symbolic signification to the events that took place in her life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]