Published 2023-11-30
Keywords
- autism, personality disorders, comorbidity
How to Cite
Copyright (c) 2023 Salvatore Di Donna, Francesco Marino, Simona Durante, Angela Ammendola, Flavia Morfini
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Abstract
This article is focused on the treatment of level 1 autism in adulthood in the absence of cognitive disability. It shows the importance, in order to a psychotherapeutic project sewn on the patient, to make a correct differential diagnosis. It identifies, at the same time, elements of psychiatric comorbidity.
At the state of the art of autism research, the scientific production about these aspects does not, however, adequately comprehensive and up-to-date. This amplifies the clinician's difficulties
because, in level 1 autism, the diagnostic assessment process is, frequently, complex.
The purpose of our work is the proposal of an assessment tool to support the clinician in this evaluation process.
This tool is based on a line of research currently evolving in the international scientific landscape: the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP), a dimensional classification system, derived from the observed covariation between psychopathology symptoms and adaptive traits. It seeks to provide more informative research and treatment objectives (i.e. dimensional constructs and clinical evaluations) compared to traditional diagnostic categories.
In other words, the focus is on processes and, therefore, on the configurations of pictures and not of syndromes: the focus is on human neuro-behavioral functioning, on how people perceive physical and social stimuli in specific life contexts.
In order to elaborate this tool, based on a rigorous review of the literature on the subject and our clinical experience, we will identify the main variables that allow us to discern elements of differential diagnosis and psychiatric comorbidity for personality disorders.
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