Los trastornos disociativosabordaje clínico y análisis de las repercusiones forenses en el victimario dentro del ámbito penal

Résumé

This paper discusses the conceptual and historical definition of the dissociative disorder, the relevant dimensions and legal implications in the court resolutions analyzed in our study, as well as foreign research that has been compared with Spanish outcomes. To this end, a systematic analysis was performed of 112 judicial decisions related to dissociative disorders dictated by Spanish courts since the early 2000s up to the present. We conclude that, in most cases, dissociative phenomena are subject to becoming a modifying circumstance of criminal liability, if the relationship between the criminal act and the psychological disorder can be confirmed. Accordingly, we found a large number of male offenders in our sample, who, in most cases, had been labelled as having a “dissociative disorder”, and there is a clear tendency towards frequent comorbidity with personality disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder. The analyzed data suggest the importance of proper assessment of this phenomenon, given its impact, from both a clinical and a forensic perspective.