Dissociation as Self-Continuity Displacement: Trauma-Induced Fragmentation as Wrong Attractor, Depersonalization as Ground State Exit, and Integration as Return Path

The authors apply a mathematical framework to dissociative disorders, proposing that a healthy sense of self-continuity rests on four axes: narrative, bodily, emotional, and identity. Dissociation is modeled as displacement along these axes, with adaptive peritraumatic dissociation as a protective response and maladaptive dissociation as capture by a wrong attractor. Depersonalization is described as partial exit from the bodily axis, derealization as relational-embodied partial exit, and dissociative identity disorder as a fragmented multi-attractor landscape. The framework formalizes trauma as deformation rendering the self-continuity ground state inaccessible, and explains why dissociation can be both adaptive and self-perpetuating, providing grounds for differential treatment.

Study at a glance

Abstract

We apply the Displacement Framework to dissociation and dissociative disorders, formalizing the self-continuity ground state S°_self across four axes: narrative continuity (memory connects past to present), bodily continuity (embodied presence), emotional continuity (feelings owned and felt), and identity continuity (stable sense of who one is). Nine formal propositions are derived covering: dissociation as axis-specific displacement D(ξ_self) measured across these four dimensions, adaptive peritraumatic dissociation as a protective acute displacement versus maladaptive wrong-attractor capture W_dissoc, depersonalization as partial bodily-axis exit and derealization as relational-embodied partial exit, DID as fragmented multi-attractor landscape requiring integration therapy as basin merging, trauma as landscape deformation Λ(τ) rendering S°_self inaccessible (van der Kolk's body-keeps-score formalized), dissociation as emotional regulation cost-benefit exchange (acute relief of D(ξ_emotion) at cost of accumulated D(ξ_self)), EMDR as simultaneous dual-context processing enabling landscape-deformation reversal, and grounding techniques as axis-specific bodily re-anchoring targeting the bodily-continuity axis directly. The framework explains why dissociation is both adaptive and self-perpetuating, and provides formal grounds for differential treatment targeting.