Work

Temporal architecture in trauma: A clinical typology with illustrative cases from the New South Wales Police Force

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Objective Disturbances in the experience of time are common across psychiatric disorders but rarely treated as a primary dimension of clinical formulation. This paper proposes that temporal organisation is a clinically meaningful cross-diagnostic dimension and advances a typology of four configurations: collapsed, deferred, rigid and fragmented time . The central hypothesis, a contemporary elaboration of Freud’s Nachträglichkeit , is that coherent experience depends on regulating temporal delay, and that failures of this regulation are clinically distinguishable. Four de-identified cases from specialist psychiatric work with New South Wales Police Force personnel illustrate the typology. Conclusions Despite overlapping symptom profiles (intrusions, avoidance, fatigue, occupational impairment), the cases showed distinct temporal organisations: collapse of past–present differentiation; prolonged incomplete integration; over-structured temporal control with conditional fragmentation under load; and discontinuous autobiographical continuity with dissociative features. Treatment priorities differed accordingly. The framework is a clinical heuristic rather than a diagnostic system; the cases are illustrative and drawn from a single occupational context, and the companion Temporal Architecture Assessment has not yet been validated. It directs clinicians to the temporal question most relevant to intervention: not only what symptoms are present, but how the patient inhabits time.

Source: Australasian Psychiatry

DOI: 10.1177/10398562261506908

Author: Greg Wilkins

Institution: The University of Notre Dame Australia

Language: English

Topic: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Research

Subfield: Clinical Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $4,150