Understanding trauma-generated dissociation and disorganised attachment: Giovanni Liotti’s lasting contributions

Abstract

With his extraordinary publications, Giovanni Liotti has left us an awe-inspiring legacy for our understanding and treatment of patients with trauma-induced disorganized/disoriented attachment (D-attachment). He revealed and analysed D-attachment’s dissociative nature as an integrative failure occuring when a child experiences an unresolvable confl ict between attachment and defensive action tendencies vis-a-vis a frightened or frightening parent fi gure. And he showed how the controlling punitive and controlling caregiving strategies which children with D-attachment may develop in middle childhood are also rooted in a dissociation of the personality. Giovanni Liotti will also lovingly be remembered as a warm, caring colleague and friend, who, on a personal level, practiced the compassion and collaboration that he wrote about in his theories and research.