About the Author

 My name is Cristina Gherghel.

Over the course of nearly five decades, I have engaged in rigorous inquiry into human development, abuse, and psychological formation, critically interrogating prevailing paradigms such as trauma, attachment theory, and neglect. These frameworks, while influential, fail to account for the ontological conditions I have identified—conditions that remain unaccounted for within the traditional narratives of injury, deficiency, or relational rupture.

My research centers on structural phenomena I term ontological nullification, ontological foreclosure, panthropic abuse, anedra, and arelationality. These represent foundational states in which relational existence is precluded from inception. Rather than proposing a variation on existing models, this work constitutes a fundamental paradigm shift in understanding human development.

Through extensive structural analysis and decades of longitudinal observation, I have delineated the mechanisms by which panthropic abuse and ego persecution give rise to self-formation in the total absence of mirroring, recognition, or symbolic exchange. Under such conditions, identity is not formed in relation to, but through autonomous structural persistence—a continuity that exists independently of interaction or relational imprint.

These findings expose a domain of human experience that has been systematically overlooked and conceptually unformulated. Acknowledging these phenomena is essential for the development of accurate diagnostic frameworks and therapeutic approaches that do not pathologize or dismiss individuals shaped by these conditions.

In connection with these structural insights into arelational development, I have also identified several neurodivergent and atypical profiles that align with this model of independent self-formation. These include:

• Asensoria – a term I have coined to describe the neurodevelopmental absence of specific affective simulations due to the lack of early relational encoding. States such as love, safety, or pride never formed, not because they were repressed, but because they were never mirrored or constructed in the first place.
• Anhedonia – the inability to experience pleasure from typically rewarding experiences. In this framework, it is not symptomatic of depression but reflects a structural absence of affective simulation due to relational non-formation.
• Aphantasia – the inability to generate mental imagery. Those with aphantasia cannot visualize people, scenes, or objects internally. It represents a missing internal representational capacity rooted in absent symbolic encoding.
• Anauralia – the inability to mentally simulate sound, including inner speech, music, or remembered voices. Like aphantasia, anauralia reflects a lack of auditory-symbolic formation.
• Asexuality – the absence of sexual attraction. While commonly framed as an identity or orientation, in this structural context, it reflects a developmental pathway in which sexual relationality was never encoded as an internal category.

These conditions are typically treated as isolated or incidental traits. However, when viewed through the lens of ontological foreclosure and arelationality, they reveal a shared foundation: each represents a domain of non-formation, not repression or loss. They are not deficits but indicators of a developmental trajectory in which symbolic, sensory, and relational encoding did not occur. The common denominator across these conditions is structural omission—a form of experiential invisibility produced not by trauma or dysfunction, but by the total absence of relational mirroring from inception.

My intention in publishing this work is to bring conceptual clarity and validation to millions of individuals whose inner lives have been pathologized, misinterpreted, or ignored due to the limits of existing developmental models. These individuals are not broken; they were structurally unseen.

Thank you for your interest in and support of my research.
To explore these concepts further, please read my work, available here: https://www.amazon.com/author/cristinagherghel