FROM HEIDEGGERIAN EXISTENTIALS TO PATHOLOGICAL MODES OF EXISTENCE: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL-EXISTENTIAL REFLECTION ON POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER

Abstract

This work presents a phenomenological-existential reflection on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), seeking to transcend the fragmentation of purely symptomatic diagnostic criteria. The general objective is to understand how trauma disrupts the fundamental existential aspects of Dasein, using as a theoretical basis Martin Heidegger's ontological analytics and Medard Boss's Daseinsanalysis, articulated with the clinical contributions of Ida Elizabeth Cardinalli. Methodologically, the research is characterized as a qualitative and exploratory literature review. The results indicate that PTSD manifests as a "temporal freeze," in which the past invades the present and obstructs openness to the future, resulting in a retraction of corporeality and freedom of movement. It is concluded that the traumatic phenomenon breaks the familiarity of the world and the individual's virtual safety barrier, transforming their existential openness into a restrictive and defensive way of being. The analysis highlights the importance of a depathologizing clinical perspective that considers suffering as an ontological restriction of being-in-the-world, enabling a therapeutic practice focused on the transition from victim identity to survivor identity and the recovery of existential fluidity.