[Psychopathology of development and structural dynamics]

The mental structure provides every human with a potential repertoire of behavior. In every interaction a reactivation of past actualization- and representation processes concerning the particular prevailing context takes place. A child's mental structure should not be devaluated in comparison to a structure of an adult person. Levels of functioning depend on the developmental age. Structural dispositions consist of represented experiences of interaction. The so-called affect attenuement plays an important part in individual affect regulation. If the structural representation follows mechanisms of memory, procedural structural dispositions may be postulated, which affect the behavior besides iconic and symbolic representations. Within the structure affect dispositions are integrated. They are able to give value to certain contents of experience and reexperience. Disorders in the development of empathy are connected with impairments of the structural development. By inherent faintness of the regulation of affects or by sensitization and traumatization processes, which involve dissociative phenomena, the affective load of representations can be changed. This may result in structural deficits.