This page was translated automatically from Turkish. Read the original

This page is an AI-assisted Turkish summary of the study presented at the 26th World Congress of Psychiatry. The study belongs to the presenting authors; please refer to the original source when citing it.

EV1157

As the past moves through the present: existential solitons in relational trauma

WHEN THE PAST MOVES THROUGH THE PRESENT: EXISTENTIAL SOLITONS IN RELATIONAL TRAUMA

The poster presents existential soliton theory, which conceptualizes relational trauma as an enduring structure of affect and meaning that forms in childhood and is reactivated with the same intensity by relational surprises in adulthood.

The poster aims to explain relational trauma through a theoretical framework drawing on the concept of the soliton in physics and is based on Draczynska and Nowakowska's Existential Soliton Theory, published in J Contemp Psychother (2025). An existential soliton is defined as a self-preserving configuration of meaning, affect, and response that persists over time and is reactivated through relational surprise. Reactivation is explained through five components, termed SIRP-S: surprise, interpretation, reaction, persistence, and soliton. In this model, violations of four fundamental motivations (FM) in childhood are identified as the source of soliton formation: violation of safety (unexpected abuse instead of expected protection), disruption of attachment (unexpected rejection instead of expected closeness), threat to identity (unexpected humiliation instead of expected acceptance), and destabilization of meaning (unexpected betrayal instead of expected purpose). In adulthood, relational surprises—such as an unexpectedly raised voice, a subtle comment perceived as criticism, or a look or silence experienced as rejection—unconsciously trigger the soliton, and the original configuration of affect and meaning returns with the same intensity. The poster compares physical and existential solitons in terms of their shared properties: propagation without dispersion, preservation of structure, movement through a nonlinear medium, and re-emergence after perturbation. It summarizes their common principle as stability despite change. The poster contains no sample, measurements, or statistical findings; the presentation is limited to a theoretical model.

All WCP 2026 summaries