Neural mechanisms involved in subthreshold PTSD may share neural similarities with those underlying the fragmented and non-verbal nature of traumatic memories in full PTSD. Moreover, psychotherapy may influence the development of a narrative pattern overlaying the declarative memory neural substrates.

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Religious/spiritual beliefs and practices constitute an important part of culture and principles clients use to shape judgments and process information. Psychotherapists may use knowledge of these belief systems and appreciation of their potential to leverage client adherence and achieve better outcomes. However, many approaches have yet to do so and the variety of concepts of religiosity/spirituality may place obstacles to this important interface. This article raises certain concepts that we see as consistent, accessible, and capable of facilitating professional dialogue in the therapeutic sphere. We discuss the impact of subjectivity, states of consciousness and perceptions influenced by religiosity/spirituality, on mental health as well as the importance of psychotherapists actually focusing clients and their belief systems, developing models to mobilize hope, and boosting coping abilities. Despite the current distance between controlled studies and clinical practice, we discuss the integration of spiritual/religious dimensions in psychotherapy with ethical professionalism, knowledge, and the ability to align the collected information so as to benefit clients. Since only 7.3% of Brazilians have no religion, and very few psychotherapeutic approaches or practitioners do actually engage religiosity/spirituality, we point to the relevance of research on this issue and the importance of testing related psychotherapeutic proposals in clinical trials.Peres, J. F.P. et al. / Rev. Psiq. Clín. 34, supl 1; 58-66, 2007

Despite increasing interest in pathological and non-pathological dissociation, few researchers have focused on the spiritual experiences involving dissociative states such as mediumship, in which an individual (the medium) claims to be in communication with, or under the control of, the mind of a deceased person. Our preliminary study investigated psychography – in which allegedly “the spirit writes through the medium's hand” – for potential associations with specific alterations in cerebral activity. We examined ten healthy psychographers – five less expert mediums and five with substantial experience, ranging from 15 to 47 years of automatic writing and 2 to 18 psychographies per month – using single photon emission computed tomography to scan activity as subjects were writing, in both dissociative trance and non-trance states. The complexity of the original written content they produced was analyzed for each individual and for the sample as a whole. The experienced psychographers showed lower levels of activity in the left culmen, left hippocampus, left inferior occipital gyrus, left anterior cingulate, right superior temporal gyrus and right precentral gyrus during psychography compared to their normal (non-trance) writing. The average complexity scores for psychographed content were higher than those for control writing, for both the whole sample and for experienced mediums. The fact that subjects produced complex content in a trance dissociative state suggests they were not merely relaxed, and relaxation seems an unlikely explanation for the underactivation of brain areas specifically related to the cognitive processing being carried out. This finding deserves further investigation both in terms of replication and explanatory hypotheses.